v 

A  ^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT 


7 


RECOLLECTIONS 

1844-1909 


BY 


HENRY  CLAY  McDOUGAL 


KANSAS  CITY,  MO. 

Franklin  Hudson  Publishing  Co. 

1910 


Copyright  by 

HENRY  CLAY  McDOUQAL 
1911 


FOREWORD. 

In  the  foreword  may  generally  be  found  the  writer's  only 
reason  for  printing;  hence  it  should  he  read,  but  seldom  is. 

These  recollections  were  commenced  last  spring,  largely 
for  the  threefold  purpose  of  preserving  my  personal  experi- 
ences with  and  reminiscences  of  a  few  of  the  men  and  women 
I  have  known ;  saying  a  word  or  two  incidentally  of  some 
places  I  have  been  in;  and  adding,  under  each  name  as  a  mere 
setting,  some  observations  and  reflections,  thoughts  and  theo- 
ries of  my  own.  All  this  was  originally  intended  for  the  tear- 
ful perusal  of  family  and  friends  after  my  death;  but  these 
are  now  the  first  to  urge  publication  while  I  am  still  on  earth. 
In  every  person,  thing,  or  book  there  is  to  me  some  good.  Man 
is  dual — physical  and  mental.  In  younger  years  the  former 
takes  care  of  itself ;  but  late  in  life  one  realizes  that  intellectu- 
ally no  man  or  woman,  thing  or  book  is  worth  while  unless 
one  is  .thereby  made  to  think.  In  early  life,  with  some  degree 
of  impunity,  the  laws  of  God  and  man  may  be,  and  often  are, 
violated ;  but  later  I  have  degenerated  into  a  sort  of  lazy  brute 
and  enter  a  plea  of  guilty  to  any  kind  of  charge  and  yield  any 
point,  rather  than  take  the  trouble  to  either  deny  or  explain. 
Then,  too,  I  have  long  believed  that  the  married  man  who 
does  not  keep  on  the  good  side  of  his  wife  is  a  chump.  While 
admitting  that  I  never  taught  school,  robbed  a  train,  murdered 
a  baby,  or  wore  chin-whiskers,  and  am  both  henpecked  and 
chickenpecked  at  home,  yet,  with  that  experience  which  only 
age  can  bring,  I  confess  that  I  do  not  now  see  my  way  clear  to 

(7) 


8  RECOLLECTIONS 

deny  my  wife,  children,  and  grandchildren  their  strong,  earn- 
est appeal  to  print  it  all,  and  do  it  now. 

To  the  studious  reader  the  repetitions  in  these  recollec- 
tions must  be  apparent,  the  work  crude  and  wholly  unlike  that 
of  a  trained  book-writer;  but  what  am  I  to  do  but  obey?  As 
the  prince  of  poets  said  near  the  closing  of  Childe  Harold's 
Pilgrimage : 

what  is  writ,  is  writ — 
Would  it  were  worthier !  but  I  am  not  now 
That  which  I  have  been — and  my  visions  flit 
Less  palpably  before  me —  and  the  glow 
Which  in  my  spirit  dwelt  is  fluttering,  faint  and  low. 

1909.  H.  C.  McD. 


INTRODUCTION. 

EARLY  YEARS — ARMY — TRAVELS — FRIENDS. 

Born  December  9,  1844  on  Dunkard  Mill  Run,  in  Marion 
County,  (now  West)  Virginia,  and  there  reared  on  my  father's 
farm,  the  usual  farm  work  and  school  life  of  the  country 
youth  were  mine  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  in  1861, 
which  ended  for  me  both  farm  and  school  days.  The  same 
little  log  school-house  at  Bethel,  just  across  the  hill  from 
home,  served  as  my  kindergarten,  common  school,  college,  and 
university ;  that  was  my  little  world,  and  in  life's  race  I  am 
still  necessarily  handicapped  by  that  lack  of  scholarship  char- 
acterized as  "the  poverty  of  language."  But  early  in  '61  the 
Confederate  forces  who  had  held  possession  of  our  part  of 
the  country,  were  driven  Southward,  and  in  July  of  that  year 
I  enlisted  in  the  Union  Army,  Company  A,  6th  Virginia  Vol- 
enteer  Infantry,  and,  among  many  other  assignments  for  a 
private  soldier,  was  made  chief  clerk  of-  my  brigade,  where 
I  served  my  last  year  in  the  Army,  1863-4.  Upon  being  mus- 
tered out  at  Wheeling,  West  Virginia,  by  reason  of  the  expira- 
tion of  my  term  of  enlistment  on  August  18,  1864,  I  was  at 
once  made  chief  personal  transportation  clerk  in  the  United 
States  Quartermaster's  Department;  first  under  Captain  Hen- 
ry Harrison  Boggess,  at  Gallipolis,  Ohio,  and  later  under 
Captain  Lewis  Cass  Forsyth,  at  Indianapolis,  Indiana.  In  the 
meanwhile,  however.  Gen.  Montgomery  C.  Meigs,  then  Quar- 
termaster-General of  the  United  States  Army,  made  me  his 
special  agent  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  and  I  served  there  in  that 

(9) 


10  RECOLLECTIONS 

capacity  during  the  summer  and  fall  of  1865.  I  quit  the  service 
of  the  United  States  at  Indianapolis  in  March,  1866,  and  spent 
the  remainder  of  that  spring  and  the  summer  of  that  year  in 
travel,  and  in  visiting  my  mother's  people  at  and  around  Alex- 
andria, Virginia,  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  in  other  cities  of 
the  East. 

My  father  had  removed,  in  March,  1866,  from  West  Vir- 
ginia to  Bancroft,  in  Daviess  County,  Missouri,  and  I  arrived 
at  his  new  home  on  October  25,  1866.  My  intention  in  coming 
west  was  to  visit  my  family  for  ten  days  or  two  weeks ;  but  I 
have  been  a  citizen  and  lawyer  of  Missouri  nearly  forty-three 
years  now — first  at  Gallatin,  and  since  1885  at  Kansas  City. 

While  in  the  Army,  and  more  especially  when  I  was  the 
chief  clerk  of  our  brigade,  at  both  Clarksburg  and  New  Creek 
(now  Keyser)  in  West  Virginia,  as  well  as  while  in  the  Quar- 
termaster's Department,  at  Washington  and  elsewhere,  I  had 
exceptional  advantages  in  becoming  personally  well  acquainted 
and  walking  and  talking  with  many  of  America's  foremost 
men  and  women 

Since  the  Civil  War,  too,  while  holding  public  office  oc- 
casionally, I  have  traveled  and  studied  and  worked  more  than 
most  persons,  and  come  in  contact  and  grown  somewhat  famil- 
iar with  men  and  women  and  things  not  only  throughout  our 
own  country,  but  also  in  Canada  and  Old  Mexico.  For  I 
have  often  traveled  from  ocean  to  ocean  and  from  Lakes  to 
Gulf,  and  upon  the  ground  have  studied  physical  and  social 
conditions,  and  spent  from  clays  to  months  in  nearly  all  our 
States  and  Territories.  I  attended  the  World's  Fairs  at  Phil- 
adelphia (1876),  Chicago  (1893),  and  St.  Louis  (1904),  as 
well  as  National  Encampments  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Re- 
public at  Minneapolis  (1884),  San  Francisco  (1886),  St.  Louis 
(1887),  Columbus  (1888),  Washington  (1892),  Cincinnati 


INTRODUCTION  11 

(1898),  Washington  (1902),  and  Denver  (1905);  and  have 
also  attended,  as  an  onlooker,  most  of  the  National  Conven- 
tions of  both  political  parties,  beginning  with  the  Democratic 
National  Convention  at  St.  Louis  in  1876.  Then,  too,  I  have 
professionally  very  often  been  before  the  United  States  Su- 
preme Court  and  in  the  Departments  at  Washington ;  and  have 
known  all  our  Presidents  personally  since  1866,  and  the  Cab- 
inet officers  of  most  all  of  them  as  well. 

So  it  came  about  that  as  an  American  farmer-boy,  clerk, 
soldier,  lawyer,  official,  and  traveler,  and  withal  something  of 
a  Bohemian,  I  have  come  in  contact  with  and  personally  known 
all  sorts  of  people,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  But  as 
life's  game  is  closing,  I  look  back  now  with  no  little  pleasure 
and  some  pride  upon  these  incidents:  (i)  I  was  born  and 
reared  on  a  farm ;  (2)  served  as  a  soldier  in  the  Union  Army ; 
and  (3)  that  my  professional  brethren  unanimously  chose  me 
as  President  of  the  Missouri  Bar  Association. 

Originally  the  names  of  many  of  the  closest  and  best  of 
my  friends  were  classified  under  proper  heads,  and  then  alpha- 
betically arranged,  with  the  intention  of  writing  a  few  words 
of  my  own  as  to  each  individual.  That  list  is  creditable  alike 
to  the  retentive  memory  and  long  life  of  a  good  mixer  among 
his  fellows ;  yet  the  fact  now  looms  up  mountain  high  that 
many  of  the  great  and  good  friends  named  must  be  here  passed 
by  in  silence,  and  only  the  highest  peaks  of  life's  highway 
noted,  for  my  list  is  too  long  and  life  too  short  to  give  a  line 
to  each,  however  pleasant  to  me.  But  apart  from  this  con- 
sideration, outside  of  my  immediate  family  and  friends,  only 
a  few  would  find  interest  in  the  mere  names  and  personal  in- 
cidents anyway.  Hence  I  must  now  content  myself  with  short, 
personal  sketches  of  the  few. 

To  all  who  know  them,  those  whom  I  here  name  will 


12  RECOLLECTIONS 

present  themselves  as  either  good  or  great — to  me  they  were 
both.  The  men  of  my  own  profession  heretofore  noted  by 
Clark  are  herein  referred  to  first.  Then  will  come  my  own 
sketches,  under  proper  head,  of  the  lawyers  I  knew  best  and 
esteemed  most  in  West  Virginia,  Missouri,  and  a  few  other 
States.  Then  I  shall  say  a  word  of  the  Presidents  I  have 
known  since  1866  j  and  then  of  a  mere  handful  of  the  states- 
men, soldiers,  journalists,  poets,  and  some  of  the  other  men 
and  women  worth  while,  among  the  many  I  have  met  and 
known. 

1909.  H.  C.  McD. 


RECOLLECTIONS. 


SHORT  PERSONAL  SKETCHES. 
I. 

LAWYERS  PICTURED  BY  CI,ARK. 

In  the  private  library  at  my  home,  in  one  large  frame, 
hang  the  photogravure  portraits  of  144  of  the  eminent  Eng- 
lish-speaking lawyers  of  the  world,  while  up  in  my  den  there, 
in  two  volumes  gotten  out  in  1895  by  Gilbert  J.  Clark,  Esq.,  of 
the  Kansas  City  bar,  may  be  found  in  print  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  life  of  each  of  these  men.  Out  of  the  entire  144  lawyers 
there  pictured  and  sketched,  115  were  Americans,  and  of  these 
1  knew  personally  68.  In  the  two  volumes  named,  Mr.  Clark 
there  said  in  print  much  of  that  which  might  have  been  writ- 
ten concerning  each  man  named,  and  for  that  reason  alone  I 
do  not  here  repeat  his  sketches,  nor  do  more  than  merely  cite 
these  volumes  and  ask  the  curious  reader  to  consult  the  books 
themselves.  But  out  of  all  the  144,  from  my  reading,  study, 
and  observation,  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  three  who  will  go 
down  in  history  as  our  greatest  and  best  American  lawyers 
were  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall,  of  Virginia,  Justice  Samuel 
F.  Miller,  of  Iowa,  and  Lemuel  Shaw,  of  Massachusetts.  Our 
very  masters  of  logic  were  in  turn  John  C.  Calhoun  and  Ros- 
coe  Conkling,  and  our  great  legal  and  public  orator  was  Henry 
Clay,  yet  the  master  of  them  all  as  an  eloquent  and  impassioned 
talker  was  Sargent  Smith  Prentiss,  of  Mississippi.  Indeed, 
so  firm  is  this  conviction,  that  in  my  opinion  Prentiss  was  the 

(13) 


]4  RECOLLECTIONS 

one  great  natural  orator  which  this  country  has  produced 
since  the  early  days  of  Patrick  Henry,  of  Virginia.  My  anno- 
tations, made  in  the  past  few  months  in  these  two  volumes,  go 
to  make  up  my  personal  estimate  of  my  lawyer  friends  there 
sketched. 

In  addition  to  the  lawyers  therein  named,  among  the  many 
other  wise  and  successful  practitioners  of  my  chosen  profes- 
sion whom  1  have  met  and  known  in  a  close,  personal  way,  I 
shall  here  say  a  few  words  of  those  whom  I  consider  as  being 
above  their  fellows,  and  then  little  sketches  of  others. 

II. 

LAWYERS — Two  OBSERVATIONS. 

Of  some  of  the  lawyers  alphabetically  pictured  and 
sketched  by  Brother  Clark,  these  two  legal  observations  should 
here  be  made  and  considered:  John  C.  Calhoun,  Henry  Clay, 
Daniel  Webster,  and  Thomas  Hart  Benton  all  passed  away 
before  my  day.  All  were  lawyers,  yet  Mr.  Clark  omits  the  last. 
Americans  revere  and  honor  the  memory  of  each  one  of  this 
Big  Four  of  the  United  States  Senate,  and  agree  that  all  were 
great.  But  I  here  record  the  prediction  that  in  the  long  years 
that  yet  shall  be  the  latter  will  go  down  in  history  as  the  great- 
est of  them  all.  Calhoun,  Clay,  and  Webster  were  careless  of 
their  future  fame,  but  that  was  not  true  of  Benton.  Either 
in  his  "Thirty  Years'  View,"  in  two  volumes,  or  in  his  "Abridg- 
ment of  the  Debates  in  Congress,"  in  sixteen  volumes,  Benton 
religiously  preserved,  in  substance  and  effect,  every  great  speech 
he  ever  made,  while  those  of  the  others  appear  only  in  frag- 
mentary form.  Benton  forecast  the  years  and  knew  better 
than  any  other  man  of  his  day  the  value  and  durability  of 
printers'  ink  ;  his  compeers  did  not. 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  Morrison  R.  Waite,  and  Melville  W. 


LAWYERS  15 

Fuller  have  been  the  several  Chief  Justices  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  since  1866,  and  I  have  known  them,  as 
well  as  all  other  members  of  that  high  court,  as  I  have  both 
lost  and  won  cases  in  that  tribunal.  So  much  has  been  written 
and  spoken  concerning  them  all,  that  it  were  folly  to  here 
mention  each  jurist  specially,  as  these  little  memories  are  al- 
ready too  long.  But  attention  might  here  be  directed  to  this: 
The  lawyer  who  thoroughly  knows  the  facts  and  the  law  of 
his  case  has  nothing  to  fear  in  that  court  anil  to  him  it  's  the 
easiest  American  court  to  talk  to;  but  woe  to  him  who  is  not 
familiar  with  his  case !  They  stop  one  and  ask  questions  one 
never  hears  elsewhere,  and  what  they  most  want  is  a  plain, 
concise,  shorthand  statement  of  facts  anil  principles;  for  its 
members  know  and  will  state  and  apply  the  law  which  rules 
its  proper  decision. 

III. 

LAWYERS — WEST  VIRGINIA. 

FAIRMONT:  ALPIIEUS  F.  RAYMOND  was  the  son  Ojf 
Colonel  Thomas  S.  Raymond,  who  represented  that  district 
in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  prior  to  the  Civil  War, 
and  was  born,  reared,  lived,  and  died  at  Fairmont  in  Marion 
County,  (now  West)  Virginia.  He  became  and  for  many  years 
was  one  of  the  most  learned  lawyers  as  well  as  one  of  the  best 
public  speakers  of  his  time.  As  a  Union  man,  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Virginia  Convention  of  1861,  and  both  spoke  and 
voted  against  the  passage  of  the  State  Ordinance  of  Secession 
at  Richmond.  But  when  the  first  Federal  troops  marched  into 
his  native  town  in  May,  1861,  Raymond  at  once  went  South- 
ward, and  there  served  in  the  Confederate  Army  as  Chief 
Quartermaster,  first  to  Gen.  "Stonewall"  Jackson  (who  was 


16  RECOLLECTIONS 

born  and  reared  at  Clarksburg  in  the  adjoining  county  of  Har- 
rison), and  after  his  death,  to  Gen.  Jubal  Early.  After  that 
war,  he  was  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Appeals  of 
West  Virginia  for  ten  years,  and  then  resumed  the  law  prac- 
tice at  his  home,  where  he  died  at  the  age  of  seventy.  Early 
in  life  he  married  my  cousin,  Miss  Maria  Boggess.  They 
reared  a  large  family  of  rarely  intellectual  children.  He  was  a 
most  enthusiastic  and  patient  fisherman ;  and  on  the  banks  of 
the  beautiful  Monongahela  River,  I  've  seen  him  watch  his 
cork,  without  a  bite  or  a  wink,  for  half  a  day  at  a  time.  He 
was  busy  in  absorbed  thought  upon  some  legal  proposition, 
and  to  him  it  mattered  little  whether  he  caught  the  fish  or  not. 

A.  BROOKS  FLEMING  was  first  made  the  Prosecuting  At- 
torney of  our  county  (Marion)  in  1863;  married  Carrie  Wat- 
son in  1865 ;  was  made  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court,  and  later 
the  Governor  of  his  State.  Is  an  able  lawyer,  a  rich  man ;  fond 
of  literature,  history,  and  Democratic  politics. 

JOHN  W.  MASON  served  in  my  own  regiment  (6th  W. 
Va.)  in  the  early  part  of  the  war,  and  then  as  a  sergeant 
in  Maulsby's  Battery.  He  was  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Inter- 
nal Revenue  during  President  Benjamin  Harrison's  term  of 
office,  and  for  four  years  has  been,  as  he  still  is,  the  Circuit 
Judge  of  our  native  country.  No  better  lawyer  nor  braver  sol- 
dier is  found. 

CLARKSBURG:  CALEB  BOGGESS  was  an  able,  painstak- 
ing lawyer,  who  had  an  enormous  private  practice  and  finally 
became  the  general  counsel  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail- 
road Company. 

NATHAN  GoFF,  JR.,  a  rich,  handsome,  and  learned  lawyer, 
was,  when  first  I  met  him,  a  private  and  then  adjutant  of  the 
3d  Virginia  (Union)  Infantry.  Then  was  promoted  through 
the  various  grades  up  to  brigadier-general  when  the  Civil 


LAWYERS  17 

War  ended.  Later  on  he  was  made  U.  S.  District  Attorney, 
member  of  the  lower  house  of  the  Congress,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  in  the  Cabinet  of  President  Hayes,  and  is  now  a  Judge 
of  the  U.  S.  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals.  From  boyhood  he  has 
been  a  magnetic,  powerful,  and  persuasive  public  speaker.  Was 
born  to  wealth  and  position;  married  Laura  Despard  when 
young,  reared  a  family,  and  through  it  all  is  the  only  man 
whom  I  have  ever  known  that  the  money  of  earth  has  left  un- 
spotted and  unspoiled.  I  spent  a  summer  afternoon  with  him 
at  his  Clarksburg  home  a  few  years  ago,  and  found  him  as  ?n 
youth,  in  a  full  suit  of  white  from  his  shoes  to  his  hat. 

WILLIAM  A.  HARRISON,  a  grave-faced,  thoughtful  Judge 
of  the  State  Supreme  Court  when  I  knew  him.  He  had 
an  old  bachelor  brother  or  other  kinsman,  whose  given  name  I 
do  not  now  recall,  living  in  the  same  town.  One  night  this  old 
philosopher  and  thinker  said  to  me,  'way  back  when  I  was  a 
boy:  "You  now  think  you  '11  never  marry.  Now  that  would 
not  be  so  bad  if  you  die  under  sixty,  but  awful  after  that  age. 
Look  at  my  condition :  Here  I  am,  old  and  rich,  with  houses, 
slaves,  and  money;  but  there  is  not  a  single  human  being  in 
all  the  world,  white  or  black,  that  would  raise  a  hand  or  do 
anything  for  me,  were  it  not  for  the  hope  that,  when  I  am  done 
with  it,  they  will  inherit'  or  in  some  way  get  my  wealth.  I  tell 
you,  my  boy,  if  would  be  better  for  you  to  reconsider  and  marry 
some  good  girl  while  yet  young." 

MORGANTOWN  :  JOHN  MARSHALL  HAGANS  called  on 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  Goff  with  me  at  Washington  when  the 
latter  was  in  the  Hayes  Cabinet,  and  later  we  spent  the  day  to- 
gether at  Goff' s  home  in  Clarksburg.  They  were  close  friends. 
Hagans  married  the  daughter  of  U.  S.  Senator  Waitman  T. 
Willey,  and  was  afterward  a  member  of  Congress,  and  then  a 
most  careful  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court.  The  last  time  we 


18  RECOU.ECTIONS 

met  was  in  company  with  Captain  Amos  N.  Prichard,  at  Wat- 
son's Hotel  in  Fairmont,  in  1900.  Hagans  then  looked  old  and 
gray,  for  he  was  in  the  last  stages  of  Bright's  disease,  but  still 
on  the  bench.  I  recall  how  profoundly  he  regretted  that,  on 
account  of  his  health,  he  could  not  join  Prichard  and  me  in  a 
good  old  Bourbon  whisky  toddy. 

PARKERSBURG:  JOHN  J.  JACKSON  was  appointed  by 
President  Lincoln  in  April,  1861,  as  U.  S.  District  Judge  of 
his  State,  and  on  the  bench  earned  for  himself  the  title  of  "the 
Iron  Jurist."  He  held  his  office  for  over  forty  years  and  died 
only  recently.  But  he  was  great  always  as  lawyer,  man,  and 
judge. 

LAWYERS — MISSOURI. 

GALLATIN:  JAMES  MCFERRAN,  a  native  of  Maryland, 
came  to  Missouri  in  1848  and  filled  many  offices.  Among 
others,  was  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court,  a  member  of  the  State 
Convention  of  1861-3,  and  colonel  of  the  ist  M.  S.  M.  Cavalry. 
He  was  a  most  careful,  methodical,  and  painstaking  lawyer,  and 
could  get  more  out  of  the  statutes  of  the  State  than  any  one 
else  I  ever  knew.  He  organized  and  incorporated  the  Daviess 
County  Savings  Association  at  Gallatin ,  but  in  1867  removed 
his  family  from  that  town  to  Chillicothe,  Missouri,  where  he 
opened  another  bank.  In  1873  he  left  this  State,  and  from  that 
time  to  his  death,  in  1891,  this  multi-millionaire  owned  a  bank 
at  Colorado  Springs,  Colorado.  He  continued  to  practice  law 
at  Gallatin  as  long  as  he  remained  in  this  State,  was  a  member 
of  the  committee  that  examined  me  for  a  license  to  practice 
law  (as  were  also  Henry  M.  Vories  and  Joel  F.  Asper),  and 
soon  after  my  admission  became  my  first  law  partner,  under 
the  firm  name  of  McFerran  &  McDougal. 

Upon  procuring  my  license  to  practice  law  on  November  6, 
1868,  among  a  lot  of  other  rule.c,  I  then  solemnly  resolved  that 
I  would  never  give  legal  advice  without  charging  a  fee.  That 


LAWYERS  19 

very  afternoon  a  farmer  called  and  asked  my  advice  on  some 
road  law  question.  How  I  happened  to  know  that  law  and 
answer  him  correctly  will  always  remain  a  mystery,  but  the 
legal  advice  was  given.  He  inquired  the  amount  of  my  fee. 
Recollecting  my  rule,  burning  up  with  fright  and  excitement, 
which  I  tried  not  to  show,  I  promptly  answered,  "Three  dollars 
and  a  half."  He  paid  it  and  went  away  as  happy  as  I  was. 
But  how  or  why  I  stumbled  on  that  figure  *or  my  first  fee,  I 
don't  know  today. 

Another  rule  of  that  day  was  that  I  would  never  spend 
five  minutes  on  the  testimony  in  any  case  in  which  I  did  not 
have  a  substantial  fee.  In  that  way  only  could  I  devote  all  my 
time  to  the  study  of  problems  and  cases  that  paid  cash.  This 
rule  was  a  professional  necessity  then,  for  I  was  young  and 
]oor;  but  now  it  has  grown  into  a  life  habit  and  is  still 
practiced. 

At  the  request  of  the  Gallatin  newspaper  men,  I  wrote  up 
a  tribute  to  Colonel  McFerran's  memory  after  his  death,  which 
was  widely  copied  by  other  papers.  He  was  able,  just,  and 
even  generous,  and  but  few  seemed  to  know  all  this.  In  look- 
ing backward  now,  my  recollection  is  that  the  only  really  mean 
political  trick  I  ever  turned  was  at  McFerran's  expense,  al- 
though it  proved  a  blessing  in  disguise.  He  was  always  a  pro- 
nounced Democrat  and  I  an  enthusiastic  young  Republican. 
As  a  member  of  the  Missouri  Convention  of  1861-3  ne  nacl 
drawn  the  report  for  his  committee  on  the  test  oath  question, 
and  when  that  report  came  up  for  hearing,  made  a  bitter  speech 
against  "ministers  of  the  gospel"  who  were  inclined  South- 
ward, in  June,  1862.  I  had  read,  studied,  and  preserved  the 
printed  proceedings  of  the  debates  in  that  convention,  and 
still  have  them  all  in  my  library.  In  1872  McFerran  was  a 
•candidate  for  the  Congressional  nomination  in  his  party,  and 


20  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  believed  that,  if  nominated,  he  would  be  elected  over  our  man, 
for  his  regiment  was  made  up  from  that  district.  So  I  care- 
fully marked  the  objectionable  part  of  his  speech,  carried  it 
to  and  laid  it  before  the  editor  of  the  Democratic  newspaper 
in  our  town,  and  left  it  there  without  a  word.  He  was  not 
nominated. 

SAMUEL  ARBUCKLE  RICHARDSON  was  a  native  of  Ken- 
tucky, reared  in  Ray  County,  Missouri,  but  for  many  years  a 
resident  of  Gallatin,  and  died  there  in  December,  1882.  His  un- 
equaled  physical  and  moral  courage,  coupled  with  his  splendid 
common  sense  and  knowledge  of  the  law,  made  him  one  of  the 
most  formidable  antagonists  at  the  bar  to  be  found  anywhere. 
Men  feared  or  loved  him ;  but  at  home  with  his  family  he  was 
as  gentle  as  a  child.  He  was  the  attorney  of  his  circuit  in  the 
early  days  and  for  about  ten  years  of  his  later  life  was  a  most 
exemplary  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court.  He  was  my  neighbor 
and  friend,  and  when  he  knew  the  end  could  not  be  far  away, 
he  sent  for  me  and  urged  me  to  write  a  sketch  of  his  life  and 
his  death.  In  vain  I  attempted  to  beg  off,  on  the  grounds  that 
I  was  not  a  writer ;  that  he  was  a  Christian  and  I  a  pagan ;  that 
he  should,  therefore,  request  his  own  pastor  to  prepare  such 
a  sketch.  His  answer  to  all  my  arguments  was  this :  "No,  you 
must  write  it ;  no  other  will  do ;  for  I  know  you  will  do  my  mem- 
ory justice."  Hence,  after  he  was  laid  away,  I  did  prepare, 
not  only  the  proceedings  of  the  bar,  but  also  the  sketch  which 
he  urged,  and  both  were  afterward  printed  in  full  in  the  Gal- 
latin newspapers. 

BOYD  DUDLEY  was  born  in  Marion  County,  Virginia,  nearly 
fifty  years  ago,  but  since  1866  has  lived  nearly  all  the  time  in 
Gallatin,  where  he  has  successfully  practiced  law  since  early 
manhood.  As  he  is  my  nephew  and  I  reared  and  educated 
him,  after  the  death  of  his  father  in  1868,  I  do  not  say  much 


LAWYERS  21 

about  him  here.  However,  in  all  his  adult  life  he  possessed  in 
a  high  and  noted  degree  one  attribute  to  which  I  have  ever  been 
a  stranger — he  knows  how  to  and  does  save  his  money,  and  will 
no  doubt  end  his  career  as  not  only  a  great  and  good  lawyer, 
but  a  wealthy  man.  In  1881  he  took  a  flier  down  at  Socorro  in 
New  Mexico,  where  the  Mexicans  always  referred  to  him  as 
"el  cochito  avogada" — "the  little  lawyer";  nor  do  I  forget  the 
language  of  their  local  paper  in  announcing  his  arrival  in  that 
then  boom  town:  "Hell  's  broke  loose;  another  Missouri 
lawyer  struck  the  town  last  night." 

JOHN  ADAMS  LEOPARD  was  born  in  Virginia  and  became 
a  member  of  the  Gallatin  bar  in  the  spring  of  1852.  He  was 
my  firm  friend  from  the  time  I  located  there,  up  to  the  day  of 
his  death  in  1905.  At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Missouri  Bar 
Association,  held  in  St.  Joseph  in  1906,  I  delivered  a  memorial 
address  on  the  life,  character,  and  achievements  of  this  vener- 
able lawyer,  orator,  dreamer,  scholar,  and  patriot.  It  is  re- 
ported in  full  in  the  printed  proceedings  of  that  meeting,  at 
pages  188-195.  In  it  I  noted  the  law  practice  as  I  found  it  in 
the  West,  named  many  of  the  State  leaders  of  the  bar  at  the 
date  of  Leopard's  admission,  and  to  that  tribute  now  feel  that 
I  can  add  nothing.  (See  Appendix.) 

CANTON:  DAVID  WAGNER,  a  rapid  and  careful  law 
writer  and  on  the  bench  of  the  Missouri  Supreme  Court  con- 
tinuously from  April,  1865,  to  1877,  and  during  all  that  time  his 
short,  crisp,  lawyerlike  opinions  will  be  found  reported  in  the 
volumes  containing  the  decisions  of  that  tribunal.  I  was  last 
with  him,  in  the  same  room  at  the  hotel,  at  the  State  Republican 
Convention  held  at  Sedalia  in  the  spring  of  1880,  wherein  we 
were  delegates  from  our  respective  counties. 

CARROLLTON :  ROBERT  D.  RAY  was  by  birth  a  Ken- 
tucky, but  lived  for  many  years  in  Carroll  County,  and  when 


22  RECOLLECTIONS 

first  I  came  west  at  the  close  of  the  war,  attended  the  courts 
of  the  Grand  River  country,  and  especially  in  Daviess  and  Liv- 
ingston counties.  His  custom  during  the  day  was  to  sit  or 
walk  alone,  which  he  denominated  "generating  the  law,''  and 
spend  the  evening  in  some  friend's  law  office  and  repeat  poetry, 
his  favorite  in  that  day  being  Bret  Harte's  "Heathen  Chinee." 
He  was  on  the  Supreme  Court  bench  from  1881  to  1891,  and 
was  a  most  careful  and  conscientious  lawyer  and  Judge. 

JOHN  B.  HALE  was  colonel  of  a  Missouri  regiment  in  the 
war,  a  member  of  the  Constitution  Convention  of  1875,  and 
later  of  the  U.  S.  Congress.  Soon  after  his  death,  Ralph  F. 
Lozier,  Esq.,  who  had  been  Hale's  law  student  and  was  then 
a  member  of  the  Carrollton  bar,  delivered  before  the  Missouri 
Bar  Association  at  Kansas  City  a  memorial  address  on  the  life 
and  character  of  Hale,  which  is  found  in  the  printed  proceed- 
ings of  that  Association  for  1907. 

CHILLICOTHE:  ELBRIDGE  J.  BROADDUS  was  born  in 
Kentucky,  but  lived  and  practiced  and  was  on  the  trial  court 
bench  at  Chillicothe  for  many  years,  and  is  now  the  presiding 
Judge  of  the  Kansas  City  Court  of  Appeals.  When  his  home 
was  in  Chillicothe  and  mine  in  Gallatin  (only  26  miles  apart), 
we  saw  much  of  each  other.  Together  we  then  tried  cases, 
were  sometimes  opposed  to  each  other,  and  each  tried  cases 
before  the  other.  Then  we  hunted  and  fished,  smoked  and 
drank  together,  and  each  was  often  a  guest  at  the  home  and 
office  of  the  other,  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  here  record  the  fact 
that,  in  addition  to  being  a  most  excellent  lawyer,  Broaddus 
was  always  and  in  all  places,  first  of  all,  a  gentleman. 

While  Broaddus  was  holding  his  court  down  at  Kingston, 
about  1878,  he  appointed  the  visiting  members  of  the  bar  to  ex- 
amine a  young  applicant  for  license  to  practice  law,  and  I  was 
on  that  committee.  That  night  we  examined  the  young  man, 


LAWYERS  23 

and  found  that  he  was  as  bright  as  a  button  on  everything  else, 
but  knew  absolutely  nothing  about  law.  We  had  to  and  did  re- 
port the  fact  to  the  court  the  following  morning,  and  neces- 
sarily refused  to  recommend  a  license.  While  we  were  all 
busy  in  court  that  morning,  the  young  man  stalked  in,  bright, 
chipper,  confidently  anxious  and  willing  to  wrestle  with  his 
first  client.  Addressing  the  Court  with  the  utmost  composure, 
he  said  in  a  loud  voice:  "If  your  Honor  please,  I  have  been 
duly  examined  touching  my  qualifications  to  practice  the  law, 
and  I  am  now  here  to  receive  my  license."  Judge  Broaddus 
gravely  told  him  that  the  committee  had  reported  adversely 
and  that  it  was  not  in  the  Court's  power  to  issue  the  license. 
Without  batting  an  eye  or  showing  the  slightest  embarrassment, 
the  applicant  carefully  looked  us  all  over  and  said  to  the  Court : 
"Well,  sir,  judging  from  the  personal  appearance  of  the  law- 
yers here  assembled,  I  must  be  the  first  man  who  was  ever 
refused  a  license  to  practice  law  at  this  bar." 

FRANK  SHEETZ  went  from  his  father's  farm  in  Clay  Coun- 
ty, Missouri,  to  Chillicothe,  and  there  entered  the  law  office  of 
Broaddus  £  Pollard  about  1872.  Even  then  he  was  a  student, 
thinker,  and  worker,  and  all  these  he  has  ever  since  continued. 
The  natural  result  is  that  for  many  years  he  has  been  one  of 
the  safest  and  best  lawyers  in  the  State.  As  man  and  lawyer, 
friend  and  citizen,  he  is  still  a  blessing  to  his  community ;  hon- 
ors and  trusts  his  legion  of  friends  and  curses  his  few  enemies, 
just  as  he  did  when  a  boy. 

KANSAS  CITY:  CHARLES  O.  TICHENOR  must  have 
proven  himself  a  most  exemplary  officer  in  the  Civil  War,  for, 
ever  since  I  have  known  him,  now  many  long  years,  I  have 
regarded  him  as  the  most  careful,  methodical,  hard-working 
lawyer  I  ever  met.  Always  an  earnest  but  genial  man  and  law- 
yer, when  he  undertakes  the  prosecution  or  defense  cf  any  civil 


24  RECOLLECTIONS 

case,  he  goes  to  the  bottom  of  both  law  and  fact.  These  at- 
tributes have  made  him  the  leader,  the  head  and  front,  of  the 
Kansas  City  and  Western  bar,  while  his  powers  of  logical 
statement  are  unsurpassed.  Plain,  unassuming,  direct,  he  daily 
exemplifies  the  known  fact  that  the  simple  and  the  natural, 
in  human  life  as  in  mechanics,  always  win. 

JOHN  F.  PHILIPS  has  rilled  many  high  and  important  pub- 
lic positions,  from  that  of  colonel  of  the  7th  Regiment  M.»S.  M. 
Cavalry  during  the  war,  to  the  office  of  Judge  of  the  U.  S. 
Court,  and  always  with  credit  to  his  friends  and  honor  to  him- 
self. At  the  bar  he  was  the  very  master  of  pleading,  of  prac- 
tice and  the  rules  of  evidence,  and  on  the  bench  forgets  none 
of  his  splendid  legal  achievements.  His  reported  opinions  in 
both  State  and  Federal  Courts,  as  well  as  his  public  speeches 
and  addresses,  are  models  of  classical  learning  and  logic,  un- 
usual eloquence,  rare  pathos,  and  marvelous  power.  That  the 
higher  courts  have  sometimes  held  him  in  error  detracts  noth- 
ing from  the  correctness  of  his  conclusions  and  only  demon- 
strates the  fallibility  of  human  reasoning.  The  bench,  bar,  and 
people,  while  conceding  his  honesty  of  purpose,  are  prone  to 
regard  him  as  coldly  cynical ;  yet,  as  his  neighbor  and  friend,  I 
know  that  he  is  both  warm-hearted  and  even  generous,  as  well 
as  most  just  always.  None  other  has  lambasted  me  personally 
as  he  has ;  yet  it  is  only  his  way,  and  he  has  never  either  per- 
petrated or  permitted  a  wrong 

FRANK  HAGERMAN  is  a  native  Missourian  and  for  twenty 
years  has  been  a  member  of  the  Kansas  City  bar,  where  his 
hard  professional  work  and  sterling  business  sense  have  brought 
him  both  fame  and  fortune;  and  now  he  is  one  of  the  leaders 
of  the  Western  bar.  During  my  term  of  office  as  City  Coun- 
selor, for  these  reasons,  I  selected  him  from  the  sixteen  special 
counsel  for  the  people  to  accompany  me  eastward  and  assist 


LAWYERS  25 

in  what  was  known  as  the  Kansas  City  Water  Works  case,  in- 
volving $3,179,000,  in  the  summer  of  1895.  In  that  case,  to- 
gether we  went  to  the  cities  of  New  York,  Boston,  Burlington, 
Vermont,  and  St.  Paul,  and  argued  before  Mr.  Justice  David 
J.  Brewer,  of  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  who  had  that  case, 
every  question  that  could  come  up,  and  finally  won,  to  the 
perfect  satisfaction  of  everyone  in  Kansas  City.  Our  most 
formidable  antagonists  were  William  B.  Hornblower  and 
Wheeler  Peckham,  of  New  York ;  Moorefield  Story,  of  Boston ; 
and  Louis  C.  Krauthoff,  Charles  O.  Tichenor,  and  Gardiner 
Lathrop,  of  this  bar.  In  our  five  special  trips  to  the  East  our 
plans  often  went  awry,  and  more  than  once  Hagerman  lay 
down  utterly  disheartened  and  insisted  that  all  our  work  was 
in  vain,  the  City  must  lose;  that  we  were  up  against  a  stone 
wall,  beaten,  etc.  To  this  not  unreasonable  complaint,  as  well 
as  to  bolster  him  up,  I  always  answered,  in  substance,  that  I 
knew  his  conclusions  were  not  sound ;  that  our  case  might  look 
discouraging,  but  that,  with  his  "splendid  ability"  and  my 
"nerve,"  we  two  made  up  the  best  legal  team  the  people  could 
have  sent  east,  and  that  we  would  finally  win. 

During  these  New  England  journeys  that  summer  we 
twice  stopped  at  the  old  wooden  hotel  in  the  ancient  city  of 
Vergennes,  Vermont.  Its  wide,  clean  beds,  its  splendid  table, 
and  big  black  Angora  cat  are  among  the  unforgotten  joys; 
but  one  of  our  drives  from  that  town  across  the  country  seven 
miles  to  North  Ferrisburg,  where  Brewer  lived  in  summer, 
was  the  most  enjoyable  I  ever  made.  The  horses  and  carriage^ 
were  good  and  the  country  road  better.  In  driving  over  early 
one  morning,  the  flowers  bloomed,  the  birds  sang,  and  the 
dew  was  on  the  grass,  while  nearby  Lake  Champlain  and  the 
Adirondacks  were  to  our  left  and  the  Green  Mountains  of  Ver- 
mont to  our  right.  All  these  made  up  a  scene  to  be  enjoyed 
once  and  remembered  through  life. 


26  RECOLLECTIONS 

Our  last  oral  argument  in  that  case  before  Justice  Brewer 
was  made  at  Burlington,  Vermont,  in  September,  1895,  on  the 
supnlemental  bill  of  the  opposition  on  behalf  of  the  "Boston 
syndicate,"  for  $300,000  damages  against  the  City.  There  was 
a  world  of  vexation  in  that  bill  and  little  else.  Brewer  inclined 
to  the  belief  that  Hagerman  and  I  were  right,  but  directed 
counsel  on  both  sides  to  submit  him  briefs  in  thirty  days.  As 
Hagerman  was  worn  out  and  came  on  home,  I  worked  day  and 
night  on  our  argument  alone,  from  Burlington  through  Mont- 
pelier,  the  White  Mountains,  Portland,  Boston,  and  on  to  New 
York.  Here  the  work  was  completed  and  mailed  to  the  printer. 
When  the  other  side  read  that  brief,  they  promptly  dismissed 
their  bill  and  the  City  heard  no  more  of  that  claim.  No  won- 
der, for  that  argument  filled  the  old  Virginian's  definition  of 
"a  powerful  good  job  of  skinnin',"  and  I  am  rather  proud  of 
it  today.  The  effort,  however,  brought  upon  me  the  symptoms 
of  vertigo,  and,  accompanied  by  our  genial  associate,  Frank  F. 
Rozzelle,  of  this  city,  we  spent  some  weeks  at  Cobb's  Island, 
off  the  coast  of  Virginia,  and  then  visited  at  Norfork  and 
Richmond  on  our  leisurely  homeward  march.  • 

In  browsing  around  Richmond,  however,  Rozzelle  and  I 
visited  the  old  State  House,  and  Library,  St  John's  Church, 
John  Marshall's  old  home,  the  war  home  of  Jeff  Davis,  Libby 
Prison,  Hollywood  Cemetery,  and  all  other  points  and  places 
of  interest  to  the  stranger  in  and  about  that  ancient  and  historic 
city  of  beauty  and  chivalry.  But  by  far  the  most  interesting 
trip  of  them  all  to  me  was  the  Sunday  afternoon  we  drove  out 
past  the  equestrian  statue  of  Gen.  Robert  E.  Lee  on  his  war- 
horse  "Traveler,"  as  both  looked  on  the  field  along  in  the  early 
'6os,  and  then  on  out  to  the  Lee-Camp  Soldier's  Home  of  the 
old  Confederates,  where  Col.  Chas.  P.  Bigger  was  the  Com- 
mandant. To  him  I  reported  "present  for  duty,"  and  in  sub- 
stance said :  "Colonel,  away  back  in  the  days  of  the  early  Col- 


LAWYERS  27 

ony,  my  people  came  here  and  located  on  the  James  under  the 
charter  of  1609,  and  ever  since  then  have  been  known  as  the 
Virginians  of  Virginia — F.  F.  V.s,  if  you  please;  but  when  the 
Civil  War  came  on,  an  elder  brother  enlisted  under  your  flag, 
while  I  went  the  other  way ;  as  a  Union  soldier,  for  four  years 
I  did  my  best  to  obey  the  always  command,  'On  to  Richmond !' 
but  you  fellows  then  kept  us  out ;  so  this  is  the  first  time  lever 
got  into  the  city,  and  now  I  want  to  meet  and  know  the  old 
'Johnnies'  at  this  Home."  The  short,  fat,  good-natured  Com- 
mandant literally  took  me  in  his  arms,  and  said :  "God  bless 
you,  sir;  you  are  just  the  kind  of  a  Yankee  soldier  we  like  to 
meet  here."  In  his  jolly,  soldierly  way,  he  then  presented  me 
to  old  boys  who  had  marched  and  fought  with  Lee,  Jackson, 
Jeb  Stuart,  Ashby,  Mosby,  Jenkins,  et  al.,  and  I  do  not  recol- 
lect to  have  spent  a  more  enjoyable  afternoon  than  at  the 
Lee  Home. 

GEORGE  W.  MCCRARY  was  Judge  of  the  U.  S.  Circuit 
Court  when  first  I  met  him,  and  afterward  a  practicing  law- 
yer here  and  President  of  the  Missouri  Bar  Association.  But 
with  some  pleasure  I  now  recall  the  fact  that  when  I  was  a 
law  student  back  in  1868,  at  Gallatin,  Judge  Frank  Ballinger,  of 
Keokuk,  Iowa,  was  visiting  members  of  his  family  in  that  town, 
and  he  and  I  spent  a  .summer  afternoon  there  on  the  grass  out 
under  a  spreading  shade-tree.  McCrary  had  just  been  nom- 
inated for  Congress  by  the  Republican  Convention  in  his  dis- 
trict up  in  Iowa,  and  the  good  old  lawyer,  in  speaking  of  him, 
said :  "Keep  your  eye  on  that  young  fellow,  for  he  is  one  of 
your  coming  men.''  The  venerable  jurist  then  told  me  that 
one  morning,  years  before  that,  a  young  farmer-appearing  boy 
came  into  his  law  office  at  Keokuk  and  said  he  wanted  to  read 
and  study  law  with  him ;  that  he  questioned  the  young  fellow 
closely  as  to  his  hopes,  fears,  ambitions,  etc.,  and  finally  wound 
up  his  talk  by  asking  the  lad  what  he  expected  to  accomplish. 
The  rather  startling  answer  struck  and  amused  Ballinger,  for 


28  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  boy  said :  "I  intend  to  study  law  in  the  summer  and  teach 
school  in  the  winter-time  to  support  myself;  then,  after  my 
admission  to  the  bar,  I  shall  first  go  to  the  Legislature,  next 
to  the  State  Senate,  then  to  Congress,  and  before  I  die  I  shall 
be  a  United  States  senator  or  a  Cabinet  officer."  '  Ballinger 
thought  such  confidence  and  modesty  should  be  rewarded,  and 
at  once  took  the  young  man  into  his  office.  He  then  told  me 
the  announced  program  had  so  far  been  fully  carried  out,  and 
that  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  the  future,  as  the  boy  would 
be  elected  to  Congress  and  would  go  higher;  but  again  said, 
"Watch  him."  I  did.  That  boy's  name  was  George  W.  Mc- 
Crary.  He  was  then  elected  to  Congress,  wrote  a  law-book  on 
"Elections,"  became  Secretary  of  War  in  the  Cabinet  of  Pres- 
ident Hayes,  and  thereafter  held  the  proud  position  which  I 
have  named,  as  well  as  being  the  general  counsel  of  one  of 
our  great  railway  corporations. 

While  McCrary  was  practicing  law  in  Kansas  City,  I  rep- 
resented the  plaintiff  in  an  important  land  case  in  the  Fed- 
eral Court,  but  there  was  one  slight  defect  in  my  client's  title 
which  gave  me  no  little  trouble.  At  first  a  very  technical  law- 
yer was  employed  on  the  other  side  and  filed  an  elaborate 
answer,  setting  up  twenty-seven  specific  objections  to  our  title, 
but  not  the  one  that  I  feared.  Then  McCrary  was  employed ; 
his  keen  legal  mind  grasped  the  vital  point,  and  he  filed  a  little, 
short  amended  answer,  discarding  all  else,  but  predicating  his 
defense  solely  upon  the  one  point  against  me.  Upon  that  he 
won  the  case,  as  he  had  the  legal  right  to  do.  He  was  genial 
and  gentle,  and,  above  all,  a  great  and  good  lawyer. 

LIBERTY:  SAMUEL  HARDWICKE,  an  accomplished, 
scholarly  gentleman,  through  a  long  life  kept  up  all  his  classic- 
al studies;  he  was  an  able  lawyer,  and  was  born,  reared,  and 
died  in  Clay  County. 


LAWYERS  29 

In  and  for  some  years  following  1869,  we  were  on  opposite 
sides  of  a  series  of  Daviess  County  cases  at  Gallatin  and  I  came 
to  know  him  intimately.  When  he  and  the  Pinkerton  Detect- 
ive Agency  were  endeavoring  to  exterminate  the  James  boys, 
of  this  county,  from  1870  on  up,  I  was  their  middle-man  and 
all  their  correspondence  was  through  me.  That  both  were  zeal- 
ous there  can  be  no  question ;  but  the  friends  of  the  gang  made 
matters  so  hot  in  old  Clay  for  the  Major  that  he  was  com- 
pelled to  abandon  his  home  and  temporarily  reside  at  St.  Paul, 
in  Minnesota.  Upon  the  completion  of  a  truce  between  them, 
he  returned  to  Liberty,  but  pending  that  trouble  gave  me  elab- 
orate sketches  of  the  James  family  history,  their  exploits,  etc. 

On  December  7,  1869,  two  men  robbed  the  bank  at  my 
home  town  of  Gallatin,  killed  my  friend  Captain  John  W. 
Sheets,  who  was  cashier,  and  then  made  good  their  escape, 
Citizens  of  the  town  fired  upon  them  so  hotly  that  the  race- 
mare  of  one  of  the  robbers  got  away  from  him  and  the  two 
fled  on  the  remaining  horse.  Near  the  town  they  overtook  a 
farmer  named  Daniel  Smoote,  who  was  riding  homeward, 
forced  him  to  dismount,  took  his  horse,  and  away  they  went. 
Later  our  citizens  saw  and  had  a  running  fight  with  the  rob- 
bers down  in  Clay  County,  and  recognized  Smoote's  horse,  but 
made  no  capture.  Two  days  later  Smoote  came  to  employ  me 
to  bring  an  attachment  suit  for  the  race-mare,  saddle,  and 
bridle,  which  were  there  in  a  livery  barn.  The  robbers  had 
committed  a  felony  and  the  right  to  an  action  was  clear.  I  was 
young,  had  been  through  the  war, .was  just  married,  and,  when 
Smoote  gave  me  the  facts,  did  not  think  of  fearing  to  begin 
his  suit  against  anybody.  The  fact  came  to  me  afterward  that 
Smoote  had  been  to  all  the  older  lawyers  of  the  bar,  and  all 
had  declined  his  case  because  of  the  defendants.  Well,  I 
brought  his  case  in  the  old  Common  Pleas  Court  there,  against 


30  RECOLLECTIONS 

Frank  James  and  Jesse  James,  and  attached  this  property  early 
in  1870.  The  defendants,  by  attorneys  (not  personally),  ap- 
peared and  filed  their  answer.  To  prove  my  case  was  to  fix 
upon  them  the  murder  of  my  friend  Sheets,  and  there  I  was ! 
By  agreement  the  case  was  continued  until  I  saw  my  way 
clear  to  get  to  the  jury  and  I  announced  ready  for  trial.  Then 
the  opposition  withdrew  the  answer,  judgment  was  rendered, 
and  the  sheriff  sold  the  attached  property. 

But  pending-  that  case,  I  shall  never  forget  just  how  Major 
Hardwicke  and  Colonel  Tom  McCarty,  of  his  town,  took  me 
away  around  the  corner  of  the  old  court-house  at  Gallatin, 
in  the  spring  of  1870,  and  there  imparted  the  secret  and  not 
over-consoling  information,  that  because  I  had  brought  that 
suit  and  attached  the  favorite  race-mare  of  Jesse  James,  that 
gentleman  had  sworn  to  kill  me  on  sight.  As  Jesse  knew  me 
and  I  did  not  know  him,  there  was  nothing  left  for  me  but 
to  take  my  medicine  in  absolute  silence,  and  I  did.  Years  after- 
ward, in  April,  1882,  I  was  busy  in  my  office  at  Gallatin;  Major 
Samuel  P.  Cox  (who  was  credited  with  killing  Captain  Bill 
Anderson,  the  guerrilla  leader  of  the  James- Younger  crew  in 
1864)  was  there,  reading  the  morning  paper,  when  I  received 
a  telegraphic  message  from  my  then  partner,  Marcus  A.  Low, 
saying  that  Jesse  James  had  been  killed  at  St.  Joseph,  Missouri, 
on  that  day.  In  silence  I  read  the  wire  and  then  passed  it  to 
Major  Cox.  After  he  had  finished  it,  I  said,  "Major,  you  don't 
know  what  a  load  that  message  takes  from  my  mind."  With 
the  fire  of  war  blazing  again  in  his  eyes,  the  good  Major  aston- 
ished me  by  answering,  "By  Gad!  sir,  I  do  know,  and  I  am 
perhaps  the  only  living  man  that  has  known  all  about  this 
matter  for  years."  He  then  told  me  that  back  in  Kentucky  he 
and  the  father  of  Clel  Miller  were  boys  together;  that  in  the 
battle  in  which  Bill  Anderson  lost  his  life  down  in  Ray  County,. 
Missouri,  in  1864,  he  had  recognized  Clel  as  the  son  of  his  old 


LAWYERS  31 

friend;  that  the  boy  was  in  Anderson's  command  and  was 
severely  wounded,  and  that,  being  in  command  of  the  Union 
forces,  the  Major  had  driven  away  one  of  his  men  who  was  in. 
the  act  of  finishing  the  boy;  that  early  in  1871,  Jesse  James, 
with  Clel  Miller  and  Dick  Liddell,  recognized  members  of  the 
James  gang,  came  to  Gallatin,  and  that  Jesse  there  announced 
the  purpose  of  the  trip  to  be  to  kill  Major  Cox  and  myself,  him 
for  killing  Anderson  and  me  for  attaching  Jesse's  mare;  that 
thereupon  Clel  said  to  him,  "Major  Cox  is  my  father's  old 
friend,  he  saved  my  life  once,  and  as  long  as  I  live  no  man 
shall  harm  a  hair  of  his  head ;  but  I  don't  know  or  care  a  damn 
about  the  other  fellow" ;  that  as  my  wife  and  I  were  taking  an 
evening  walk  Jesse  and  his  men  lay  concealed  behind  a  hedge 
fence,  and  that  her  presence  alone  prevented  Jesse  from  making 
good  his  threat  in  1871 ;  and  that  Clel  Miller  had  later  met  the 
Major  and  told  him  the  complete  story.  Clel  was  afterward 
killed  in  the  bank  robbery  at  Northfield,  Minnesota. 

In  August  and  September,  1883,  the  trial  of  Frank  James 
for  the  murder  of  Conductor  Westfall  near  Winston,  in  July, 
1881,  was  held  at  Gallatin.  The  State  was  ably  represented 
in  court  by  William  D.  Hamilton,  John  H.  Shanklin,  William 
H.  Wallace,  and  Joshua  F.  Hicklin,  with  Marcus  A.  Low  and 
myself  as  its  special  counsel  in  the  background.  We  two  were 
Republicans  and  the  others  all  Democrats.  The  defendant  was 
equally  well  represented  by  William  M.  Rush,  Jr.,  John  F. 
Philips,  Charles  P.  Johnson,  John  M.  Glover,  Christopher  T. 
Garner,  James  H.  Slover,  and  Joshua  W.  Alexander.  Major 
Hardwicke,  Senator  Ingalls,  and  many  other  distinguished  law- 
yers and  laymen  flocked  to  the  town  from  all  over  the  West; 
the  suppressed  excitement  was  intense,  the  evidence  such  as 
would  have  convicted  any  other  man ;  and,  while  the  arguments 
of  counsel  to  the  jury  were  superb,  I  have  always  believed 


32  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  closing  of  Mr.  Wallace  the  strongest  I  ever  heard  in  court. 
It  was  a  royal  combat  between  powerful  leaders  of  the  bar. 
Frank  James  was  acquitted.  In  my  office  that  evening,  the 
trial  Judge,  Charles  H.  S.  Goodman,  of  Albany,  said  to  me: 
"Well,  it 's  all  over,  and  I  suppose  I  am  the  only  man  living 
that  has  no  right  to  swear  about  that  acquittal."  The  State 
confidently  expected  at  least  a  hung  jury,  but  the  only  juror 
we  all  believed  dead  against  us  throughout  the  trial  proved 
to  be  the  only  man  who  at  first  had  the  nerve  to  vote  for  a 
conviction.  Since  then,  I  have  been  certain  that  no  lawyer 
knows  anything  about  a  petit  jury. 

Among  the  "cloud  of  witnesses"  at  that  trial  was  Dick 
Liddell,  who  there  fully  corroborated  every  statement  of  fact 
that  Clel  Miller  had  made  to  Major  Cox  years  before.  He  also 
said  that  in  leaving  Kearney,  Missouri,  on  his  last  visit  to  his 
old  home  there  and  just  before  his  taking  off  at  St.  Joseph  in 
1882,  Jesse  James  had  made  another  attack  upon  me.  This 
was  new  and  explained  another  life  chapter;  for  the  fact  was 
recalled  that  upon  our  return  from  Kansas  City  to  Gallatin,  the 
Rock  Island  train  upon  which  my  wife  and  I  were  passengers 
on  that  evening  was  fired  into  just  as  it  pulled  out  of  the  town 
of  Kearney.  The  incident  was  this :  I  was  smoking  in  the  for- 
ward car,  while  my  wife  was  back  in  the  chair-car.  Old 
"Hank"  Rice  was  the  conductor  in  charge.  The  train  stopped 
at  Kearney  station,  and  just  as  it  started  up  eastward  again, 
at  the  St.  Joseph  public  road  crossing,  someone  fired  a  pistol 
shot  through  the  smoker  window  at  my  right  and  scattered  its 
glass  over  my  face.  Seeing  the  commotion  in  the  smoker,  Mrs. 
McDougal  came  into  my  car  and  sought  the  cause.  I  assured 
her  that  some  careless  boy  had  only  thrown  a  stick  into  the 
car;  that  no  harm  was  done,  etc.  To  her  solicitous  questions 
I  answered  that  the  James  boys  knew  nothing  about  nor  had 


LAWYERS  33 

aught  against  me,  and  finally  had  "Hank"  take  her  back  into 
the  chair-car  and  finished  my  cigar.    While  I  always  suspected 
the  truth  of  the  matter,  yet  I  never  knew  who  fired  that  shot 
until  Dick  told  me  at  Frank's  trial  that  Jesse  James  was  the 
man.    Liddell  then  further  told  me  that  on  one  occasion,  along 
in  the  '705,  Jesse  James  and  he  had  ridden  into  Chillicothe, 
Missouri,  for  the  express  purpose  of  robbing  its  principal  bank ; 
that  he  and  Jesse  went  into  this  bank  under  the  pretext  of 
changing  a  large  bill,  but  really  to  spy  out  just  how  they  mighf 
best  turn  the  trick,  when,  upon  a  door  leading  from  the  bank 
into  a  law  office,  Jesse  espied  the  words,  "Frank  Sheetz,  Law- 
yer" ;  that  in  speedily  going  from  there  over  to  the  old  Brown- 
ing House,  Jesse  had  said  that  he  and  Sheetz  were  reared  on 
adjoining  farms  in  Clay  County;  that  he  would  be  recognized 
and  reported  if  Sheetz  saw  him,  and  that  they  must  get  out  of 
the  town  at  once  for  that  reason.    It  happened  that  I  was  then 
in  that  town  attending  court,  was  at  the  moment  at  work  in 
that  law  office,  and  that  Jesse  and  I  dined  at  the  hotel  on  that 
day  directly  across  the  table  from  each  other!     So  nothing 
came  of  that  expedition,  and  "Mr.   Howard"    (Jesse's  then 
assumed  name)  and  his  companion  left  town  just  after  dinner. 

Just  prior  to  his  death  in  1895,  I  went  from  Kansas  City 
over  to  Liberty  and  there  spent  two  days  with  my  old  friend 
Major  Hardwicke,  and  naturally  we  again  talked  over  the  past 
and  the  breaking  up  and  dispersion  of  the  James  boys  gang. 

Everyone  knows  that  a  person  may  be  beastly  intemperate 
in  eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  working,  etc. ;  but  Americans  hab- 
itually employ  that  word  as  one  which  relates  alone  to  drink. 
In  that  sense,  out  of  the  many  temperance  movements  of  earth, 
the  only  one  of  which  I  ever  heard  that  had  practical  brains 
behind  it  was  that  of  Liberty  many  years  ago,  as  told  me  by 
the  Major:-  A  bare  dozen  of  Clay  County  speakers  knew  that 


34  RECOLLECTIONS 

law-makers  could  never  legislate  virtue  or  temperance  or  mor- 
ality into  a  people,  and  that  this  was  simply  a  matter  of  educa- 
tion. So  they  signed  a  short  compact,  under  which  each  mem- 
ber agreed  to  go  to  any  point  in  that  county,  whenever  called 
upon  to  do  so  by  their  executive  committee,  and  deliver  an  ad- 
dress on  temperance ;  and  the  sole  object  of  the  talk  was  to  be, 
and  was,  to  convince  the  people  that  it  did  not  pay  to  drink  in- 
toxicants. Meanwhile  the  members  of  the  society  found  no 
fault  with  the  drinker,  signed  petitions  for  and  encouraged 
saloon-keepers,  but  made  their  speeches  just  the  same.  The  re- 
sult was,  that  in  less  than  one  year  after  starting  the  movement 
the  last  surviving  saloon  in  that  county  closed  its  doors  for 
want  of  patronage !  There  was  no  fight  on  or  quarrel  with 
anyone,  but  the  people  were  simply  educated  into  the  belief,  in 
that  time,  that  it  didn't  pay  to  drink,  and  quit. 

The  same  man  was  also  authority  for  the  statement  that, 
here  on  the  border  where  the  war  feeling  always  ran  high, 
during  all  the  civil  conflict,  the  literary  and  musical  socie- 
ties and  the  Masonic  bodies  of  the  city  of  Liberty  never  once 
missed  holding  a  single  meeting  on  account  of  the  war.  Fel- 
lowship was  higher  than  partisanship. 

PLATTE  CITY:  ELIJAH  HISE  NORTON,  who  now  spends 
his  time  quietly  on  his  broad  acres  near  the  town,  has  been,  as 
he  still  is,  a  most  remarkable  man  to  me.  A  native  of  Ken- 
tucky, soon  after  completing  his  education  he  came  to  the  then 
far  West,  where  he  has  been  respectively  the  Judge  of  the 
Circuit  Court,  a  member  of  Congress  and  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  1875,  and  for  a  dozen  years  afterward  of  the 
Missouri  Supreme  Court.  At  the  age  of  eighty-five  he  walks 
around  his  farm  and  into  town  every  week-day,  makes  fre- 
quent visits  to  adjacent  cities,  preserves  all  his  old-time  interest 
and  enthusiasm  in  public  affairs,  and  works  and  acts  like  a 
youth. 


LAWYERS  35 

JOHN  E.  PITT  was  known  to  the  older  members  of  the 
"bar  as  "Bully  Pitt  of  Platte,"  and  just  why  I  never  knew.  He 
was  of  the  old  school  as  both  man  and  lawyer,  and  I  never 
saw  him  in  court  without  the  swallowtailed  blue  coat  with 
brass  buttons,  high  collar,  and  stock  of  decades  agone.  He  filled 
many  public  offices,  was  a  soldier  in  the  Mexican  War,  and  on 
the  Confederate  side  in  the  late  war. 

His  best  advertised  speech  (and  he  liked  nothing  quite  so 
well  as  to  make  one)  was  delivered  in  the  General  Assembly 
of  Missouri  along  in  the  early  '505.  This  was  his  "bobtailed 
bull  in  fly-time"  effort,  and  when  I  was  a  boy  it  was  reproduced 
in  full  in  England  as  a  sample  of  American  oratory ! 

Then  at  the  opening  of  the  railroad  bridge  which  spans 
the  Missouri  River  at  Atchison,  Kansas,  about  1874,  Colonel 
Pitt  went  across  the  river  and  there  made  another  speech  in  re- 
sponse to  the  sentiment  "The  Platte  Purchase,"  in  which  he 
said :  "Why,  Mr.  President,  I  have  so  long  lived  in  the  Platte 
Purchase  and  am  so  familiar  with  all  its  territory  that  you 
might  blindfold  me,  put  me  in  a  box-car,  start  me  eastward 
over  this  magnificent  bridge,  and  throw  me  off  that  car  at  any 
point  between  the  Missouri  River  and  the  Iowa  line,  and  I 
would  light  within  ten  feet  of  where  I  had  either  shot  a  deer 
or  taken  a  drink." 

Just  before  his  term  ended  as  Prosecuting  Attorney  of 
Platte  County,  along  about  1878,  Colonel  Pitt  announced  that 
he  would  spend  his  few  remaining  years  in  Colorado.  True,  he 
was  largely  "a  b'  God  and  b'  guess"  lawyer,  as  he  said ;  his  in- 
dictments were  generally  quashed  and  no  convictions  stood  to 
his  credit,  but  everybody  was  fond  of  the  Colonel,  and  he  could 
make  a  speech.  As  I  was  somewhat  handy  with  the  pen,  the 
visiting  members  of  the  Platte  Court  selected  me  to  prepare  our 
farewell  to  the  good  Colonel.  His  picture  as  an  eminent  law- 


36  RECOLLECTIONS 

yer  and  gentleman  was  drawn  with  a  free  hand,  and  signed  by 
his  Honor  and  every  member  of  the  bar,  including  visitors: 
with  streaming  eyes  the  Colonel  read  all  this  at  the  opening  of 
court  the  next  morning,  and  made  the  most  effective  speech 
heard  for  many  a  day  in  that  court.  In  closing,  he  made  a 
beautiful  prayer  for  the  writer  and  each  of  the  signers  of  our 
farewell  address,  and  proclaimed  the  fact  that  with  such  a  rec- 
ord he  could  not  think  of  deserting  "old  Platte  County."  He 
had  that  letter  reproduced  in  lithographic  form,  again  opened 
up  his  law  office,  and  at  last,  from  his  beloved  "Platte  Pur- 
chase," calmly  hied  him  away  to  his  home  in — Heaven,  I  trust. 
Over  florid  and  fervid  in  his  time  even,  the  Colonel  was  still 
eloquent  and  powerful  in  public  speech ;  his  voice  was  like  the 
roar  of  many  waters,  and  he  was  one  of  the  last  survivors  of 
a  now  vanished  generation. 

PLATTSBURG:  JAMES  H.  BIRCH,  SR.,  was  a  Virgin- 
ian by  birth,  a  newspaper  man  and  politician  in  earlier  life,  a 
member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Missouri  for  many  years, 
but  everywhere  an  accomplished,  scholarly,  courteous  gentle- 
man, and  a  public  speaker  and  orator  of  rarest  ability.  In 
1874  my  law  partner  was  a  newspaper  man  and  wrote  many 
able  editorials  in  his  paper  in  favor  of  sound  money,  or  the 
gold  standard,  in  all  of  which  Judge  Birch  heartily  concurred. 
He  was  then  an  old  man,  and,  mistaking  me  for  my  partner, 
M.  A.  Low,  he  called  me  aside  one  day,  while  attending  circuit 
court  in  his  town,  and  highly  complimented  my  firm  and  cour- 
ageous course  in  my  newspaper  on  the  money  question.  His 
error  was  apparent;  but,  as  I  was  in  hearty  sympathy  with 
him  as  well  as  my  newspaper  partner  on  that  question,  I  did 
not  undeceive  him.  He  was  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school ;  al- 
ways wore  a  broadcloth  coat  with  big  brass  buttons,  and  lived 
at  his  home  on  the  hills,  away  from  the  city;  for,  true  to  the 
traditions  of  his  early  training  in  Virginia,  Judge  Birch  died 


LAWYERS  37 

in  the  belief  that  no  gentleman  ever  lived  in  any  other  way. 
RICHMOND:  ALEXANDER  WILLIAM  DONIPHAN  in 
later  life  was  a  banker  in  Ray  County,  but  when  I  knew  him, 
he  was  still  mentally  and  physically  a  giant.  The  story  of  his 
military  exploits  in  the  Mexican  War  has  been  so  well  told 
in  "Doniphan's  Expedition,"  originally  written  by  General 
Hughes  and  later  recast  by  Mr.  Connelly,  that  no  useful  pur- 
pose could  be  subserved  by  here  repeating  it.  Early-day  Mis- 
souri lawyers  have  told  me  that  when  in  full  practice  at  the  bar, 
General  Doniphan  never  had  more  than  a  single  point  in  any 
case  and  never  made  an  argument  to  court  or  jury  longer  than 
twenty  minutes.  But  with  a  powerful  appeal,  of  which  he  was 
absolute  master  at  the  bar,  in  closing  he  always  threw  a  flood  of 
light  upon  the  pivotal  point  of  his  case  that  rarely  failed  to 
win.  He  was  of  Kentucky  birth  and  breeding;  but  for  many 
years  was  the  Colossus  and  leader  of  the  Western  bar  and 
people. 

AUSTIN  A.  KING  was  one  of  the  earlier  Judges  of  the 
Circuit  Court  and  for  four  years  the  Governor  of  Missouri. 
The  last  time  I  met  him  was  when  he  made  an  argument  in  the 
U.  S.  Circuit  Court  at  St.  Louis  in  the  early  spring  of  1870. 
He  died  soon  afterward,  from  the  effects  of  that  speech,  and 
now  rests  in  the  old  cemetery  of  his  town  in  Ray  County ;  but 
in  his  day  he  was  a  man  and  lawyer  of  great  power  and  in- 
fluence in  the  State. 

GEORGE  W.  DUNN  was  also  a  Kentuckian  by  birth  and  in 
his  earlier  years  in  the  West  was  a  circuit  attorney,  but  for 
many  years  was  a  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  Ray,  Clay, 
Platte,  and  Clinton  circuit.  He  did  not  keep  abreast  with  the 
law  literature  of  his  day,  but  his  knowledge  of  equity  procedure, 
pleading,  and  practice  was  more  extensive  than  that  of  any 
other  jurist  I  have  known.  The  longest  legal  argument  I  ever 


38  RECOLLECTIONS 

made  occupied  a  full  day  and  a  half  in  his  court  in  Clinton 
County,  in  a  then  celebrated  equity  case,  in  1884;  but  we  won 
before  him,  as  well  as  in  the  Supreme  Court. 

Judge  Dunn  latterly  labored  under  the  erroneous  impres- 
sions that  he  was  a  great  ladies'  man,  could  play  the  fiddle 
(there  were  no  violins  in  his  day),  and  write  poetry.  In  my 
library  out  home  now  reposes  a  volume  of  his  verses,  with  an 
elaborate  presentation  to  me  in  the  proper  handwriting  of  the 
author.  The  cost  of  that  book  was  $3.00  to  me;  but  I  was 
then  trying  a  case  before  him  and  he  was  well  stricken  in 
years.  His  "Temple  of  Justice,"  however,  is  in  fact  not  only 
creditable,  but  a  strong  poem  for  anyone.  Knowing  that  its 
reader  would  construe  any  applause  following  the  reading  of 
this  poem  as  a  personal  compliment  to  his  elocution,  while  the 
Judge  would  take  it  all  as  a  tribute  to  his  own  genius  as  a 
writer,  I  arranged,  at  one  term  of  his  court  in  Clinton  County, 
to  have  these  verses  quoted  in  the  argument  of  a  distinguished 
lawyer  to  the  jury,  and  for  such  applause.  After  referring  to 
his  Honor  as  "the  noble  old  Roman  who  now  occupies  this 
bench"  (and  Dunn  looked  the  part),  the  lawyer  quoted  "The 
Temple  of  Justice"  with  powerful  effect.  As  per  program, 
the  bar  and  the  audience  at  once  broke  out  in  greatest  applause. 
Lawyer  and  jurist  were  alike  pleased.  But  after  the  cheers 
subsided,  the  Judge,  smiling  like  a  cat  that  had  just  eaten  the 
family  canary,  looked  over  the  crowd,  gently  rapped  on  his 
bench,  and  mildly  said,  "Order,  gentlemen ;  order !" 

At  the  sessions  of  Judge  Dunn's  court  in  Platte  County, 
he  and  I  always  occupied  the  hotel  parlor  with  two  beds,  and 
many  a  night  he  kept  me  awake  reciting  his  poetry  and  playing 
his  fiddle.  But  I  was  there  to  try  cases,  and  found  long  ago 
that  few  investments  pay  better  than  to  keep  the  Court  in  a 
good  humor.  Hence  I  was  always  at  "attention."  But  at 


LAWYERS  39 

last  the  lights  went  out  and  the  ancient  jurist  was  laid  away 
by  members  of  his  home  bar,  a  pauper  prince,  yet  to  all  who 
knew  him  a  great  man  and  good. 

SPRINGFIELD:  THOMAS  A.  SHERWOOD  was  born  in 
the  South,  but  spent  his  mature  years  in  this  State,  and  was  on 
the  Missouri  Supreme  Court  bench  for  thirty  years  follow- 
ing his  election  to  that  high  office  in  1872.  He  has  written 
some  law-books  of  great  value,  is  one  of  the  ablest  scholars 
at  our  bar,  rather  fond  of  politics  and  Bourbon  whisky,  and 
the  head  and  front  of  our  Supreme  Court  in  my  day. 

ST.  JOSEPH:  STEPHEN  S.  BROWN,  the  leader  of  the 
St.  Joseph  bar,  is  a  native  of  New  York,  served  in  the  Union 
Army  in  the  big  war,  and  spent  his  maturer  years  in  north- 
west Missouri,  first  locating  at  Maysville,  and  later  at  his  pres- 
ent home.  When  he  was  practicing  at  Maysville  and  I  at 
Gallatin,  only  25  miles  away,  it  was  not  unusual  for  him  to 
drive  over  in  the  night-time  (we  then  had  no  cross-country 
railroad),  rout  me  out  of  bed,  and  talk  law  to  me  till  daylight. 
After  breakfast,  we  went  together  to  my  office  and  examined 
the  books.  One  time,  with  his  inimitable  drawl  (which  I  could 
not  forget  if  I  would),  and  after  talking  over  some  knotty  legal 
proposition  for  hours,  Brown  solemnly  said:  "Mack,  if  I  knew 
as  much  law  as  you  do,  I  'd  be  the  best  lawyer  in  the  West." 
That  was  probably  true;  for  he  is  by  nature  a  great  lawyer 
and  man,  but  sometimes  does  not  know  just  what  the  courts 
have  held. 

Among  the  many  good  lawyer  stones  told  me  by  Brown, 
the  following  is  reproduced: 

"I  have  forgotten  the  name  of  the  lawyer  involved,  and 
only  remember  that  he  was  the  senior  member  of  a  firm  of 
distinguished  patent  attorneys,  that  he  wore  a  Prince  Albert 
coat  'all  buttoned  down  before,'  and  that  his  face  was  orna- 


40  RECOLLECTIONS 

mented  with  a  long,  flowing  beard.  Judge  Offcault  was  ap- 
pearing for  the  complainant  in  an  important  patent  case  and 
our  hairy  friend  represented  the  defendant,  the  case  being 
tried  before  Judge  McPherson  in  Ottumwa.  After  Judge 
Offcault's  partner  had  opened  the  case,  the  lawyer  whom  I 
have  described,  with  much  noise  and  gesticulation,  made  an 
argument  five  hours  and  a  half  long,  which  completely  tired 
out  his  listeners,  including  the  Judge  of  the  court.  Judge 
McPherson  very  vividly  described  Judge  Offcault's  appearance 
when  he  rose  to  reply.  He  was  eighty-odd  years  old,  very 
heavy  and  feeble,  and  after  slowly  and  painfully  rising  to  a 
standing  position,  he  said : 

"  'If  the  Court  please,  I  am  reminded  by  the  gentleman, 
and  by  his  earnest  and  protracted  argument,  of  an  ancient 
legend  of  the  Black  Forest  of  Germany. 

'  'The  story  runs  that  long  before  the  time  of  King  Gun- 
ther,  when  the  great  forest  was  the  abode  of  gods  and  giants 
and  fairies,  there  lived  in  its  depths  a  hairy  giant,  who  had  fash- 
ioned from  the  beeches  and  firs  of  the  mountains  and  the  en- 
trails of  the  gigantic  animals  of  that  period  an  immense  fiddle, 
which,  as  it  lay  on  its  back,  reached  all  the  way  from  the 
Rhine  to  the  Neckar.  Its  bow  was  still  longer,  and  weighed 
thirty  tons. 

'  'When  our  giant  was  in  a  musical  mood,  he  would  attach 
sixteen  yoke  of  oxen  to  the  bow  and  start  them  to  pull  it 
'across  the  strings.  As  it  moved  the  great  fiddle  roared  and 
shrieked,  the  mighty  trees  swayed  and  bent  before  the  wind 
that  came  from  its  shaking  strings,  the  gods  cowered  in  terror, 
the  great  beasts  hid  themselves  in  their  dens,  and  the  little 
fairies  flew  and  danced  like  thistledown  in  the  storm.  It  took 
three  weeks  to  complete  the  journey  of  the  bow,  and  when  it 
stopped,  the  echoes  of  the  storm  wailed  and  muttered  among 


LAWYERS  41 

the  mountains  for  two  weeks  longer.  Then  the  noise  ceased, 
the  wind  died  away,  the  gods  roused  themselves  and  proceeded 
with  their  usual  harmless  festivities,  the  beasts  came  out  and 
gently  grazed  or  dined  on  each  other  as  was  their  wont,  the 
little  fairies  fluttered  to  their  sylvan  retreats  and  resumed  their 
dance,  the  great  fiddle  with  its  bow  and  the  oxen  disappeared, 
and  the  hairy  giant  sat  down  and  congratulated  himself  on 
his  music.  If  the  Court  please,  I  submit  the  cause  for  the 
complainant.' " 

Together  Steve  and  I  have  been  in  many  a  hard-fought 
legal  battle,  in  none  of  which  did  he  ever  fail  me,  and  I  here 
say  of  him,  as  great  John  Hay  said  of  his  friend  Jim  Bludsoe : 

"He  never  flunked  and  he  never  lied, 
I  reckon  he  never  knowed  how." 

JAMES  N.  BURNES  came  from  his  native  State  of  Indiana 
to  Missouri  while  yet  young,  and  for  some  years  prior  to  his 
death  resided  at  and  represented  the  St.  Joseph  district  in  Con- 
gress. His  legal  arguments  before  court  and  jury  were  always 
brilliant,  strong,  and  good,  while  his  persuasive  eloquence  be- 
fore the  people  and  his  strikingly  handsome  form  and  resonant 
voice  gave  a  rare  charm  to  his  every  utterance.  His  politics 
and  policies  during  and  for  some  years  subsequent  to  the 
troublous  times  of  the  Civil  War  were  not  at  all  times  com- 
mendable; but  he  amassed  both  wealth  and  fame  as  lawyer 
and  business  man,  and  when  he  died  in  1889,  the  Western  world 
stood  still  and  honored  his  memory.  He  presided  over  the 
"Liberal"  wing  of  the  Republican  Convention  of  Missouri  in 
1870,  and,  as  no  one  else  could,  solemnly  uttered  the  sentence, 
"Love  is  stronger  than  hate,"  in  beginning  his  opening  speech. 
In  that  convention  I  was  a  "Regular"  and  supported  McClurg, 
while  Burnes  was  a  "Liberal"  and  assisted  in  the  nomination 
of  B.  Gratz  Brown  for  Governor  of  our  State.  Since  His 


42  RECOLLECTIONS 

nominee  carried  Missouri  by  a  majority  of  over  41,000,  I  have 
never  bet  a  penny  on  any  election.  That  result  satisfied  me 
that  at  least  one  American  knew  absolutely  nothing  about  an 
election  until  after  the  votes  were  counted.  However,  our 
political  differences  made  no  sort  of  change  in  existing  friendly 
relations  as  together  we  journeyed  homeward.  A  train-wreck 
at  East  Leavenworth  and  the  killing  of  three  passengers  offered 
only  a  temporary  check  to  his  unfailing  good  humor,  and  then, 
as  always,  he  charmed  me  by  his  wit,  wisdom,  and  eloquence. 
When  we  finally  reached  St.  Joseph  on  September  3,  1870,  we 
found  newsboys  running  everywhere  with  Herald  extras,  not 
bigger  than  one's  hand,  announcing  the  historic  fact  that  Na- 
poleon III.  had  on  that  day  surrendered  at  Sedan,  and  that 
ended  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  Twenty  years  ago,  while  in 
the  performance  of  his  duties  at  Washington,  the  brilliant, 
brave,  and  brainy  Burnes  suddenly  died  in  the  harness.  Then 
an  unusual  tribute  was  paid  to  his  memory  in  the  Senate  and 
House  of  the  United  States  Congress  in  the  many  addresses 
delivered  in  both  houses. 

JEFF  CHANDLER  was  a  member  of  this  bar  when  first  we 
met ;  but,  having  a  refractory  stomach,  has  since  practiced  the 
law  in  St.  Louis,  New  York,  Washington,  and  California.  He 
has  long  been  a  powerful  speaker  to  courts  and  juries  and  de- 
servedly ranks  high  as  man  and  lawyer.  Just  out  of  college, 
he  migrated  from  a  New  England  State  to  St.  Joseph  early  in 
the  Civil  War,  and,  on  account  of  his  ability  as  a  writer,  was 
for  a  time  employed  as  a  reporter  on  the  Herald  of  that  city. 
At  a  time  when  politics,  war,  and  country  all  seemed  trembling 
in  the  balances,  Major  Bittinger,  then  editor  of  that  paper,  was 
suddenly  called  away  to  look  aftei  some  important  public  mat- 
ter and  left  young  Chandler  in  editorial  charge.  Fortunately, 
he  reached  the  office  early  iht  following  morning,  before  the 


LAWYERS  43 

paper  was  printed,  and  found  that,  after  wrestling  with  various 
problems  all  day,  Jeff  had  written  and  printed  only  a  little 
dinky  school-boy  editorial  on  "The  Mind"!  But  he  became 
a  great  lawyer,  and  I  recall  now  that  he  was  a  guest  at  our 
house  in  Gallatin  about  1871,  and  there  prosecuted  Airs.  Shaw 
for  the  murder  of  her  late  husband.  In  a  most  solemn,  im- 
pressive and  blood-curdling  closing,  he  there  said:  "Under 
the  evidence,  three  propositions  have  been  equally  well  estab- 
lished:  first,  that  Amaziah  Shaw  once  lived;  second,  that 
Amaziah  is  now  dead ;  and  third,  [pointing  his  quivering  fore- 
finger directly  at  the  defendant]  there  sits  his  murderer !"  The 
effect  upon  all  was  electrical.  Just  how  or  when  I  next  got 
back  to  earth  I  don't  recollect. 

WILLARD  P.  HALL,  SR.,  was  born  at  Harper's  Ferry  in 
Virginia,  there  worked  under  his  father  in  the  Arsenal  gun- 
smith shop,  came  to  St.  Joseph  early,  while  a  private  soldier  in 
Doniphan's  Regiment  in  the  Mexican  War  wrote  that  model 
bill  of  rights  which  today  governs  New  Mexico  as  well  as  the 
basic  laws  of  that  Territory,  and  while  yet  in  the  performance 
of  duty  at  Santa  Fe  was  elected  to  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States.  Was  at  Washington,  with  Abraham  Lincoln  and  other 
distinguished  Americans;  but  after  four  years  there,  he  re- 
sumed the  practice  of  the  law.  Was  later  the  war  Governor  of 
Missouri,  and  fully  satisfied  all  the  people  in  every  position  he 
ever  occupied.  Modest  and  unassuming  at  the  bar,  he  rarely 
talked  law  over  twenty-five  minutes,  and  never  addressed  the 
jury  unless  the  exigencies  of  the  case  demanded  it.  At  all 
times  and  places  a  student,  thinker,  and  worker,  his  marvelous 
personal  and  professional  success  ended  only  with  his  life 
in  1882. 

From  Governor  Hall  I  learned  early  in  my  lawyer  life 
the  vital  importance  of  brevity  and  the  single  issue.  Both  with 


44  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  against  him  in  many  a  case,  I  have  often  heard  him  say 
to  opposing  counsel :  "I  know  that  you  can  prove  'this,  that, 
and  the  other  proposition' ;  and  you  know,  or  can  easily  ascer- 
tain, that  we  can  prove  'so  and  so.'  Now,  our  vital  disagree- 
ment is  this  [clearly  stating  it]  ;  let  us  agree  on  all  these  other 
matters  and  direct  all  our  proof  and  argument  to  this  one 
pivotal  proposition."  This  method  of  his  was  always  accepted, 
the  trial  was  both  simplified  and  shortened,  and  no  rights  lost 
to  litigant  or  lawyer. 

At  the  creation  of  the  Missouri  Bar  Association,  here  at 
Kansas  City  on  December  29,  1880,  by  common  consent  we 
made  Governor  Hall  its  first  President;  he  soon  thereafter 
accepted  and  appointed  committees,  but  did  not -preside  at  the 
annual  meeting  held  in  St.  Louis  in  1881,  on  account  of  his 
last  illness. 

Together  he  and  I  were  guests  of  the  old  Willard  Hotel  at 
Washington  in  1878,  when  the  Governor  told  me  one  morning 
.that  Roscoe  Conkling  was  to  orally  argue  the  Stewart  case  in 
the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  that  day,  and  asked  me  to  go  up  to  the 
court-room  with  him;  but  he  added  that  while  he  had  read 
Conkling's  brief  in  the  case  and  was  satisfied  that  he  was 
wrong,  yet  he  would  make  a  good  argument.  So  we  went  up 
and  heard  Conkling,  and,  as  usual,  he  made  a  wonderful  state- 
ment no  less  than  a  surprisingly  able  argument.  After  the  case 
was  over  and  as  we  walked  down  the  Capitol  steps,  I  said: 
"Governor,  from  my  student  days  I  have  always  looked  upon 
you  as  our  ablest  and  best  Missouri  lawyer,  and  in  all  these 
years  have  followed  and  concurred  in  your  legal  opinions; 
but  my  judgment  now  is  that  Conkling  is  right."  With  char- 
acteristic frankness  and  justice,  the  Governor  replied :  "By 
God !  I  think  so  myself  now ;  but  he  is  wrong  on  paper."  Conk- 
ling won  his  case. 


LAWYERS  45 

At  that  same  term  of  court  the  Justices  gratified  my 
State  pride  most  highly  by  telling  me  that,  in  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  that  bench,  Willard  P.  Hall,  of  Missouri,  was  up 
with  and  among  the  first  half-dozen  lawyers  who  argued  cases 
at  that  bar. 

BEN  LOAN  represented  the  St.  Joseph  district  in  the  Fed- 
eral Congress  when  I  first  came  to  Missouri,  and  could  have 
filled  any  office  with  honor  and  creditably;  he  had  been  a  gen- 
eral in  the  Union  Army,  and  withal  was  an  able  and  useful 
lawyer  and  citizen.  He  was  an  earnest  worker,  wrote  a  most 
beautiful  copperplate  hand  in  his  busiest  moments ;  and  in  each 
of  the  many  land  cases  I  heard  him  try,  always  relied  on  the 
statute  of  limitations  and  a  lawful  fence ! 

HENRY  M.  VORIES  was  a  member  of  the  Missouri  Supreme 
Court,  elected  in  1872,  resigned  four  years  later,  and  soon  there- 
after died.  He  was  lacking  in  scholarship,  but  up  to  this  good 
hour  1  have  never  known  his  equal  in  the  trial  of  either  a  civil 
or  criminal  cause.  Able,  adroit,  fearless,  effective  and  suc- 
cessful as  he  was  in  the  trial  courts,  his  record  on  the  Supreme 
bench  cannot  be  as  highly  regarded. 

When  he  was  the  candidate  of  his  party  for  the  honorable 
position  of  Supreme  Judge,  a  young  and  scholarly  lawyer  of 
St.  Joseph  (one  of  the  brass  knobs  on  the  temple  of  Justice) 
was  criticising  him  for  his  lack  of  learning,  and,  among  other 
things,  said  to  Governor  Hall  and  myself:  "Why,  he  says 
*whar'  and  'thar'  and  'hoss'  in  his  arguments."  That  was  too 
much  for  Hall,  who  had  known  Vories  as  a  Kentucky  gentle- 
man, friend,  neighbor,  and  lawyer;  and  to  the  young  fellow 
the  great  jurist  turned  and  said :  "And  have  you  noticed,  too, 
young  man,  that  when  Henry  Vories  says  these  things,  he  is 
always  answered  in  the  same  language  by  the  court  and  jury?" 


46  RECOLLECTIONS 

Insect  powder  would  not  have  exterminated  that  young  fellow- 
more  quickly. 

ST.  LOUIS :  WELLS  H.  BLODGETT  has  for  many  years 
been  the  general  counsel  for  the  Wabash  Railroad  Company, 
and  a  more  thorough  lawyer,  or  more  nearly  perfect  man,  I 
have  never  known. 

During  the  war  he  was  a  gallant  officer  in  the  Union 
Army,  at  its  close  was  mustered  out  as  the  colonel  of  his. 
regiment,  then  represented  his  people  as  a  senator  in  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  Missouri,  but  has  long  resided  at  the  metrop- 
olis of  his  adopted  State,  and  knows  and  tells  about  the  per- 
sonal and  political  history  of  his  country  with  greatest  accu- 
racy, learning,  and  ability.  He  read  and  studied  law  in  the 
office  of  his  brother,  Henry  W.  Blodgett,  of  Chicago,  for  many 
years  the  U.  S.  Judge  for  the  Northern  District  of  Illinois,  and 
there  often  met,  knew,  and  became  the  personal  and  political 
friend  of  the  great  Lincoln.  In  his  private  library  at  St.  Louis 
Colonel  Blodgett  now  has  probably  the  best  collection  of  books, 
pictures,  and  statuary  of  the  Emancipator  to  be  found  in  this 
country.  No  lawyer  of  my  acquaintance  so  earnestly  insists 
upon  knowing  the  exact  facts  of  any  legal  proposition,  and  he 
often  says:  "I  must  see  and  have  the  whole  scheme  in  my 
head  before  forming  my  conclusion." 

Colonel  Blodgett  has  long  been  a  student  of  all  questions 
relating  to  the  abolition  of  American  slavery,  and  respecting 
this  question,  at  his  request,  I  examined  our  border  State  and 
Federal  laws,  and  on  November  22,  1906,  wrote  him,  in  sub- 
stance, that  the  Congressional  Enabling  Act  of  December  31, 
1862,  required  that  West  Virginia  should,  by  its  new  Constitu- 
tion, provide  that  "the  children  of  slaves  born  within  the 
limits  of  this  State  after  July  4,  1863,  shall  be  free" ;  and  then, 
after  fixing  an  age-limit  when  certain  other  slaves  should  be 


LAWYERS  47 

free,  provided  that  "no  slave  shall  be  permitted  to  come  within 
the  limits  of  this  State  for  permanent  residence." 

President  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation,  by  its  af- 
firmative recitals,  had  no  effect  upon  those  within  the  border 
slave  States,  and  applied  only  to  Negro  slaves  in  those  sections 
of  our  country  that  on  January  i,  1863,  were  in  "actual  re- 
bellion against  the  United  States." 

By  its  ordinance  of  July  i,  1863,  the  Missouri  Convention 
provided  for  the  emancipation  of  all  our  slaves  on  July  4, 
1870;  but  eleven  months  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  thirteenth 
amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  our  Constitutional 
Convention  declared  by  ordinance  that  all  our  Missouri  slaves 
were  free  on  the  date  of  its  passage — viz.,  Janurary  11,  1865. 

1  then  closed  that  letter  to  the  Colonel  in  these  words : 

"As  Maryland,  then  a  Roman  Catholic  proprietary  Colony, 
was  the  first  of  our  American  Colonies  (if  not  indeed  the  first 
law-making  power  of  earth)  to  establish  and  guarantee  to  all 
persons  religious  freedom  and  toleration  by  law  (A.  D.  1649; 

2  Kent  36)  ;  so,  over  two  hundred  years  later,  Maryland  was 
the  first  of  our  Southern  States  to  abolish  the  curse  of  human 
slavery.     After  prohibiting  slavery  prospectively,   Section  24 
of  the  'Declaration  of  Rights'  of  the  Constitution  of  Mary- 
land closes  with  the  words:  'and  all  persons  held  to  service  or 
labor  as  slaves  are  hereby  declared  free.'     This  Constitution, 
by  its  terms,  went  'into  effect  on  the  first  day  of  November, 
eighteen  hundred  and  sixty- four.'    Hence  the  truth  of  history 
demands  that  in  these  two  respects  the  highest  honor  must  be 
awarded  to  'Maryland,  my  Maryland'." 

CHARLES  D.  DRAKE  was  for  long  years  one  of  the  close 
lawyers  of  the  West,  wrote  his  great  work  on  Attachments, 
never  made  even  a  ward  speech  in  St.  Louis  without  his  man- 
uscript thereof  in  his  hand,  became  the  foremost  member  of 
the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1865,  was  later  a  member  of 
the  U.  S.  Senate  from  Missouri,  and  resigned  to  become  Chief 
Justice  of  the  U.  S.  Court  of  Claims  at  Washington,  where  he 


48  RECOLLECTIONS 

died  years  ago.  Personally  a  lovable  man  in  private  life,  but 
a  most  bitter  partisan  in  public.  In  it  all,  a  great,  earnest,  hard- 
working student  and  lawyer. 

GUSTAVUS  A.  FINKELNBERG  was  a  clear-headed,  kind- 
hearted  German  student,  thinker,  and  worker  who  first  attained 
prominence  as  the  head  of  the  Judiciary  Committee  in  our  State 
Legislature,  in  1867,  was  later  a  member  of  the  lower  House  of 
Congress,  the  candidate  of  his  party  for  Governor  of  Missouri, 
and  later  in  life  the  U.  S.  Judge  for  the  St.  Louis  district.  In 
his  busy  life  he  found  time  to  write  law-books,  attend  the  ses- 
sions of  the  Missouri  Bar  Association,  and  as  an  honest,  con- 
scientious man  resigned  his  office  because  his  health  was  giving 
way  and  he  could  no  longer  do  full  justice  to  his  fellows.  His 
death  occurred  only  last  year. 

HENRY  HITCHCOCK  was  prominent  in  his  day  as  both  man 
and  lawyer,  and  as  President  of  the  Missouri  Bar  Association 
in  1881.  He  was  a  bigger  and  better  man  than  his  brother, 
the  late  Ethan  Allen  Hitchcock,  Secretary  of  the  Interior  under 
McKinley  and  Roosevelt;  both  were  born  in  the  South,  but 
lived  in  St.  Louis,  and  were  lineal  descendants  of  the  great 
Ethan  Allen,  who,  as  the  leader  of  the  Green  Mountain  boys, 
is  said  in  history  to  have  demanded  the  unconditional  surrender 
of  Fort  Ticonderoga  "in  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and 
the  Continental  Congress." 

WARWICK  HOUGH  is  a  native  of  Virginia ;  he  early  moved 
to  Missouri,  married,  and  entered  the  Confederate  Army  as 
the  Adjutant-General  of  this  State,  and  fought  for  the  South 
through  the  war.  Later  he  was  a  member  of  the  Kansas  City 
bar,  served  for  ten  years  on  the  Supreme  Court  bench  of  his 
adopted  State,  removed  to  St.  Louis,  and  was  for  six  years  a 
Circuit  Judge  there.  As  student,  scholar,  writer,  soldier,  gen- 


LAWYERS  49 

tleman,  lawyer,  jurist,  he  still  stands  as  a  very  prince  among 
those  who  know  him. 

JOHN  W.  NOBLE  first  attained  national  repute  as  an  Iowa 
soldier  in  the  War,  and  was  mustered  out  with  the  rank  of 
brigadier-general.  Thereafter  he  became  one  of  the  foremost 
of  the  many  able  St.  Louis  lawyers,  and  acceptably  filled  the 
office  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior  under  President  Harrison. 
He  is  now  in  full  practice  at  his  home,  and,  though  white  of 
hair  and  whiskers,  but  few  of  the  younger  generation  of  today 
care  to  measure  swords  with  him  in  a  legal  contest. 

RODERICK  E.  ROM  BAUER  is  another  German  student  and 
worker  of  the  St.  Louis  bar.  After  many  other  public  positions, 
for  a  dozen  years  or  more  he  was  a  member  of  the  Court  of 
Appeals  of  his  city,  and  is  justly  ranked  as  one  of  the  cleanest, 
strongest,  and  best  law  writers  to  be  found  anywhere. 

TRENTON:  JOHN  HENDERSON  SHANKLIN  was  born  in 
Virginia,  but  migrated  to  Missouri  in  early  manhood,  served 
with  honor  as  an  enlisted  man  in  Doniphan's  Regiment  during 
the  war  with  Mexico,  became  a  lawyer,  recruited  and  com- 
manded a  Union  regiment  in  the  Civil  War,  was  a  member  of 
the  convention  called  by  Governor  Claiborne  F.  Jackson  to 
take  the  State  out  of  the  Union  in  1861,  and  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  of  1875,  and  passed  away  at  his  home  in 
1904,  honored  and  beloved  by  all. 

For  the  ten  years  ending  with  my  removal  to  Kansas  City 
in  1885.  he  was  the  head  of  the  law  firm  of  Shanklin,  Low  & 
McDougal,  and  I  have  learned  but  recently  that  during  this 
time  we  had  more  causes  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
State  and  won  a  higher  percentage  of  cases  than  any  other 
law  firm  in  the  State.  We  were  the  division  attorneys  of  the 
Rock  Island  and  Wabash  Railway  corporations,  and  in  ad- 
dition had  a  large  private  practice.  In  1881  Colonel  Shanklin 


50  RECOLLECTIONS 

was  made  president  of  the  Gallinas  Mining  and  Smelting  Com- 
pany of  New  Mexico,  and  of  the  Missouri  Bar  Association 
the  following  year,  in  both  of  which  offices  I  succeeded  him 
some  years  later.  At  the  solicitation  of  the  State  Bar  Asso- 
ciation, I  delivered  a  memorial  address  in  honor  of  this  great 
and  good  man  and  lawyer  at  the  annual  meeting  held  in  St. 
Louis.  This  is  reported  and  printed  in  full  in  the  proceedings 
of  that  meeting,  in  1904,  at  pages  164-9,  and  to  that  address 
I  must  now  refer  for  some  of  the  facts  relating  to  a  long  and 
useful  life.  But  to  it  I  now  add  a  few  incidents  in  the  Colo- 
nel's lawyer  life. 

An  old  client  of  the  Colonel  once  consulted  him  about 
some  domestic  difficulty,  and  as  he  went  out  of  the  office  I 
overheard  Shanklin  say:  "The  only  thing  I  know  of  for  that 
sort  of  trouble  is  the  shot-gun  remedy."  Soon  after  this,  I 
strolled  up  to  the  Elmore  House  for  luncheon  and  on  the  street 
met  the  Colonel's  client,  with  blood  in  his  eye,  a  shot-gun  in 
his  hands,  searching  the  town  for  his  man.  Hastening  back 
to  the  office,  I  informed  my  senior  of  the  situation.  He  rusned 
out  and  spent  the  remainder  of  that  day  convincing  his  wrathy 
client  that  he  did  not  intend  his  suggestion  just  that  way,  and 
that  the  law  must  take  its  course. 

On  another  occasion  the  Colonel  was  suddenly  called  out 
of  town  and  I  was  left  alone  to  try,  the  next  day,  the  land 
case  of  Smith  vs.  Smith — though  that  was  not  its  style.  I  got 
our  client  in  the  office  that  night  and  was  endeavoring  to  as- 
certain just  how  the  principal  witness  on  the  other  side  stood 
for  truth  and  veracity  among  his  neighbors.  Finally  my 
man,  who  was  slow  of  thought  and  speech,  got  the  prop- 
osition through  his  hair.  Then  he  took  deliberate  aim  at 
the  sawdust  spit-box  about  fifteen  feet  away,  nearly  filled  it 
with  his  tobacco  juice,  and  slowly  and  deliberately  answered : 


LAWYERS  51 

"Wall,  no;  he  is  mighty  shaky  that  a-way  out  in  the  forks  of 
the  River;  any  man  that  would  look  'Johns'  in  the  face  and 
then  say  he  is  a  honest  man  would  deny  the  handwritin'  of 
God." 

In  many  years  of  practice,  for  various  reasons,  I  always 
shunned  all  sorts  of  criminal  cases,  and  personally  have  tried 
but  two  murder  cases.  These  I  went  into  because  Colonel 
Shanklin  asked  it.  One  of  these  was  for  the  killing  of  a  deputy 
sheriff  early  in  the  '705,  and  came  to  my  county  on  change  of 
venue.  Mordecai  Oliver  and  the  Colonel  were  most  excellent 
criminal  practitioners  and  I  was  employed  to  assist  them  be- 
cause the  trial  was  to  be  in  Daviess  County.  My  seniors  sent 
me  over  to  the  jail  to  get  the  exact  facts  of  the  killing.  I  got 
them.  In  the  most  cold-blooded  manner  our  client  there  il- 
lustrated just  how  that  murder  was  perpetrated,  but  I  found 
out  that  the  State  could  not  prove  whether  the  defendant  or 
his  brother  had  fired  the  fatal  shot.  As  my  seniors  deemed  the 
defendant  not  guilty,  I  refused  to  disclose  the  facts,  and  told 
them  I  would  procure  an  acquittal  if  they  would  permit  me 
to  conduct  the  defence.  This  they  reluctantly  consented  to  do, 
for  I  was  young,  had  no  experience  in  criminal  practice,  and 
the  case  looked  dangerous.  The  prosecution  opened  the  trial 
to  the  jury  with  an  elaborate  statement,  to  all  which  I  only 
replied :  "The  defendant  simply  pleads  not  guilty ;  hear  the 
proof."  Not  one  of  the  many  witnesses  for  the  prosecution 
testified  to  the  vital  point,  and  to  each  I  only  said,  "Stand 
aside,"  At  the  close,  I  offered  a  demurrer  to  the  evidence. 
The  Court  asked  if  I  wished  to  argue  it,  and  I  said,  "Xo." 
The  suspense  was  awful,  the  life  af  a  man  was  at  stake;  my 
associates  trembled,  but  I  never  batted  an  eye  nor  opened  my 
mouth.  While  his  Honor  was  mentally  going  over  the  evi- 
dence, I  wrote  out  a  verdict.  The  Court  at  last  gave  my  de- 
murrer; as  a  juror,  old  Lewis  Snider  signed  the  verdict,  and 


52  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  defendant  went  free.  But  he  was  guilty  as  hell,  and  I 
knew  it.  He  at  once  left  the  State,  and  I  have  here  in  my  desk 
today  his  note  for  my  fee  of  $500,  not  a  penny  of  which  was 
ever  paid.  Retributive  justice?  Maybe  so.  In  entering  my 
plea  of  guilty  at  this  late  day,  my  only  extenuating  circum- 
stance is  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  youth,  and  then  our  client 
had  the  constitutional  right  to  his  defense;  but  that  was  my 
last  murder  case. 

As  attorneys  for  the  Rock  Island,  the  Colonel  and  I  were 
defending  the  Company  in  a  trial  for  damages  in  a  collision  on 
the  road  between  one  of  our  east-bound  trains  and  a  country- 
man driving  a  buggy  at  a  crossing.  Our  defense  was  that  the 
statutory  signals  were  duly  given  by  the  approaching  engine, 
and  that  the  driver  failed  to  stop,  or  look,  or  listen,  and  we 
had  witnesses  to  establish  all  this.  Major  George  H.  Hubbell 
had  been  in  the  buggy  and  swore  that  the  plaintiff  was  driving 
along  in  the  usual  way;  that,  while  driving  down  hill,  they 
were  struck  by  the  engine  at  the  crossing  and  the  buggy  re- 
duced to  kindling-wood,  etc.,  but  incidentally  mentioned  the 
fact  that  he  (Hubbell)  had  heard  the  whistle  sounded.  As 
usual,  I  was  examining  the  testimony  while  my  senior  took 
notes,  offered  suggestions,  etc.  When  the  Colonel  heard  the 
statement  that  the  whistle  had  sounded,  he  urged  me  to  in- 
quire where  the  Major  and  the  train  were  at  that  instant.  I 
protested  that  the  jury  would  draw  the  inference;  but  the  fact 
is,  I  distrust  cross-examination  always,  and  feared  the  truth. 
As  Shanklin  kept  on  urging  the  question,  I  yielded  and  put  it. 
To  the  Colonel's  surprise,  Major  Hubbell  answered:  "Well, 
suh,  as  near  as  I  could  calculate,  suh,  when  that  whistle 
sounded,  I  was  just  about  on  a  level  with  the  top  of  your 
smokestack,  suh,  and  death  and  destruction  was  a-starin'  us 
in  the  face." 

At    the    meeting    of    the    Missouri    Bar    Association    at 


LAWYERS  53 

Sedalia  in  1882,  and  when  Colonel  Shanklin  was  elected  as 
its  President,  the  State  Association  of  School  Teachers  was 
assembled  at  the  same  town.  This  wide  difference  between  the 
two  professions  was  then  in  evidence  at  all  their  hotels: 
teachers  in  groups  earnestly  discussed  the  way  to  spell  words, 
teach  classes,  etc. ;  while  lawyers  never  mentioned  "shop,"  but, 
with  cigars  lighted  and  feet  elevated,  talked  only  of  good  things 
to  eat  and  drink. 

Colonel  Shanklin,  Charles  H.  Mansur,  Mordecai  Oliver, 
and  John  E.  Pitt  were  all  in  full  practice  at  the  North  Mis- 
souri bar  when  I  located  there  forty-three  years  ago;  and 
with  these  lawyers  in  mind,  aided  by  a  somewhat  vivid  im- 
agination, many  years  ago  I  responded  to  the  toast  of  "Ye 
Lawyer  of  ye  Olden  Time"  in  this  fashion : 

"From  history  and  tradition  alike  we  learn  that  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Republic  courts  and  lawyers  were  held  in  higher 
esteem  than  they  are  today.  One  of  the  reasons  for  this  was 
that  in  those  days  the  plain  common  people  of  the  country 
absorbed  from  lawyers  and  preachers  the  larger  share  of  their 
meager  education.  To  procure  this  they  were  compelled  to 
and  did  attend  churches  and  courts  with  a  regularity,  industry, 
and  interest  that  would  today  appear  most  astonishing.  In. 
this  way  the  pioneer  lawyer  and  preacher  became  the  two 
most  powerful  factors  in  moulding,  guiding,  and  controlling 
public  thought  and  action  on  the  frontier  firing-line  of  our 
civilization. 

"When,  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  I  came  west  and 
located  at  Gallatin,  there  were  still  to  be  found  in  the  active 
and  profitable  practice  of  our  profession  up  in  North  Missouri 
quite  a  number  of  these  old-time,  honest,  earnest,  rugged,  and 
able  lawyers,  who  still  'rode  the  circuit'  and  were  the  fore- 
most men  of  that  country. 

"So  rapid  has  been  the  advance  of  our  civilization,  and  so 
many  changes  have  been  wrought  by  the  terrible  hand  of  Time 
in  the  law  practice,  that  I  doubt  if  there  could  now  be  re- 
produced, anywhere  in  this  broad  land  of  ours,  the  court-room 
scenes  that  were  familiar  to  every  lawyer  who  then  practiced 
on  the  circuit. 


54  RECOLLECTIONS 

"I  have  in  my  mind's  eye  now  four  of  these  old-timers. 
Their  hopes,  ambitions,  and  methods  were  not  unlike.  Each 
knew  that  to  win  a  case  before  the  jury  and  the  people  he 
must  make  a  powerful  speech,  and  neither  ever  failed  to  do  so. 
Each  commenced  his  speech  in  a  slow,  conversational  tone. 
Warming  up,  he  first  removed  his  coat,  then  his  vest  and  col- 
lar went,  winter  and  summer  alike.  He  then  unbuttoned  his 
shirt-front,  exposing  his  rugged,  hairy,  manly  bosom,  and  thus 
stripped  for  the  fight,  he  poured  hot  shot  and  shell  into  the  camp 
of  the  enemy  for  hour  after  hour.  The  loftiest  flights  of 
sarcasm,  invective,  and  illustration  were  his;  now  he  cooed 
like  the  sucking  dove,  now  roared  like  the  lion ;  his  sneering 
face  was  at  times  a  breach  of  the  peace,  his  manner  an  assault ; 
yet  to  'his  Honor  upon  the  bench'  he  was  always  respectfully 
courteous,  and  for  his  own  greater  glory  never  failed  to  refer 
to  the  opposing  counsel  as  'my  most  distinguished  and  learned 
friend  on  the  other  side.'  The  trial  ended,  court  adjourned, 
the  two  opposing  counsel,  with  the  judge  between  them,  all 
arm  in  arm,  wended  their  way  from  the  court-house  to  the 
tavern  and  there  spent  a  good  part  of  the  night  in  playing 
cards  (solely  for  amusement,  never  gambling)  and  drinking 
good  old  whisky  from  a  jug  that. one  of  them  insisted  should 
be  'stopped  only  with  a  corn-cob.'  The  truth  is  that  for  some 
years  after  I  came  to  the  bar,  I  attended  the  courts  with  these 
dear  old-timers  up  in  North  Missouri,  and  found  no  difficulty 
in  falling  into  some  of  their  ways.  They  were  short  on  books, 
but  long  on  principle;  knew  Blackstone  and  Chitty  and  Kent 
'from  kiver  to  kiver' ;  and  while  I  have  since  known  more  ac- 
complished and  bookier  lawyers,  yet  I  have  not  known,  nor 
shall  I  ever  know,  any  who  could  more  ably  or  more  clearly 
argue  a  question  of  law  from  principle;  nor  yet  those  who 
could  make  more  convincing  arguments  to  the  jury  or  court 
than  the  stalwart  old-time  lawyers  of  the  Grand  River  country 
with  whom,  as  student  and  young  lawyer,  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  associate  for  years  after  casting  my  tiny  craft  upon 
the  boundless  ocean  of  Jurisprudence." 

STEPHEN  PEERY  was  also  from  Virginia,  but  in  early 
life  came  to  this  State ;  he  became  an  able  and  brilliant  lawyer 
at  the  bar  of  the  Grand  River  Country,  an  eloquent  public 
orator  who  always  said  things,  filled  many  important  public 


LAWYERS  55 

offices;  and  himself  closed  the  scene  out  in  Arizona  about  ten 
years  ago.  Wretched  health  and  despondency  laid  the  lion  low, 
and  caused  the  ending  of  one  of  the  wisest,  bravest,  and  best 
of  men. 


LAWYERS  OF  OTHER  STATES. 


ILLINOIS. 

EMORY  A.  STORRS,  of  Chicago,  was  one  of  the  strongest 
and  best  of  our  American  lawyers.  A  magnificent  dresser,  a 
rather  vain  but  accomplished  gentleman,  he  was  a  shining  light 
in  public  assemblages  as  well  as  in  the  courts  in  the  days  that 
are  gone.  Many  of  the  methods  of  the  man  are  now  recalled, 
but  of  them  all,  three  instances  impressed  me:  At  one  time 
he  was  trying  an  important  case  at  his  home,  in  which  a  big 
merchant  of  that  big,  busy,  bustling  city  was  one  of  the  wit- 
nesses against  him.  Noting  the  way  Storrs  confused,  abashed, 
and  crucified  other  witnesses  by  his  merciless  cross-exam- 
ination, this  merchant  frequently  repeated:  "Just  wait  until 
I  take  the  stand  and  watch  me  mop  the  earth  with  this  great 
lawyer."  His  turn  came  at  last,  and,  with  the  easy  confidence 
of  the  witness  who  knows  just  what  and  how  he  is  to  say 
things  to  opposing  counsel,  he  turned  to  Storrs  at  the  close 
of  his  examination-in-chief  and  looked  and  waited.  He  and 
Storrs  were  great  friends  at  the  club,  and  had  been  for  years. 


56  RECOLLECTIONS 

After  a  long  pause,  Storrs  blandly  asked:  "What  is  your 
name,  please?"  He  answered.  Storrs  said:  "Spell  it,  please," 
and  made  him  spell  it  all  out  letter  by  letter.  Then,  as  quietly, 
Storrs  said :  "That  is  all,  sir ;  stand  aside." 

The  plea  which  Storrs  made  in  the  Chicago  Convention 
of  1880  for  the  renomination  of  General  Grant  was  the 
masterpiece  of  logical  eloquence  of  that  great  aggregation  of 
stalwart  Americans,  and  it  was  not  his  fault  that  Garfield  won 
the  prize. 

Upon  his  return  home,  after  a  year's  study  of  our  men 
and  their  methods,  I  now  recollect  that  a  thoughtful  British 
statesman  of  the  time  said  that  of  all  the  great  Americans  he 
had  here  met,  Emory  A.  Storrs  and  Benjamin  Harrison  stood 
at  the  head  of  the  class  of  the  first  half-dozen. 

THOMAS  F.  WITHROW,  of  the  same  bar,  was  the  general 
counsel  of  the  Rock  Island  Railway  during  many  of  the  years 
I  have  been  engaged  in  its  law  department ;  and  no  great  law- 
yer enjoyed  more  than  he  the  luxury  of  casting  aside  the  cares 
of  his  high  position  and  indulging  in  his  earlier  reminiscences. 

Withrow  was  a  native  of  my  own  country,  but  in  youth 
went  to  Iowa,  and  for  years  practiced  at  Des  Moines ;  was  the 
reporter  of  their  Supreme  Court  and  the  author  of  its  earlier 
Digest.  Whether  on  himself  or  another,  a  joke  was  always  a 
joke  with  him,  and  his  hearty  laugh  at  his  own  expense  is 
with  me  now,  as  he  once  told  me  the  story  of  a  country 
client  of  his  partner  who  haunted  their  office  for  days.  This 
man  then  urged  Withrow  to  take  the  particular  case ;  but  that 
gentleman  was  always  too  busy  to  talk  with  the  client.  When 
at  last  he  did  get  his  ear,  Withrow  said :  "I  don't  understand 
this ;  my  partner  has  always  looked  after  all  your  cases  in  court, 
and  why  don't  you  go  to  him  now?"  Slowly  and  deliberately 
the  countryman  answered:  "Now,  the  God's  truth  is,  Mr. 


LAWYERS  57 

Withrow,  you  must  take  and  try  this  case,  because  your  partner 
is  too  good  a  man  to  handle  it." 

The  last  case  we  argued  together  was  here  in  the  U.  S. 
Circuit  Court,  and,  as  usual  for  him,  Mr.  Withrow  made  a 
concise  and  clear  argument.  Judge  Arnold  Krekel  was  on  the 
bench,  and  while  a  brusque  and  blunt  German  student,  no  man 
living  or  dead  was  kindlier.  But  in  his  closing  Mr.  Withrow 
laid  down  some  proposition  to  which  his  Honor  dissented,  and 
in  his  usual  curt  way  he  said  things.  With  quiet  and  silent 
dignity  the  speaker  gathered  up  his  books  and  papers.  As  he 
was  about  to  leave  the  bar,  Judge  Krekel  said :  "Why  don't 
you  proceed  with  your  argument,  Mr.  Withrow?  The  Court 
is  listening."  Then  came  from  Withrow  this  parting  shot,  in 
tones  of  mingled  sarcasm  and  contempt:  "I  decline  to  argue 
any  case  before  any  court  that  can  neither  comprehend  a  law 
point  nor  treat  a  member  of  the  bar  as  a  gentleman."  As  we 
passed  from  that  court-house,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye  and 
in  a  reassuring  voice,  Mr.  Withrow  said :  "Don't  be  alarmed, 
Mack ;  we  are  right  on  both  principle  and  authority ;  I  said  all 
I  wanted  to,  anyway;  Krekel  will  decide  the  case  our  way." 
And  he  did. 

ED.  S.  WILSON,  of  Olney.  Here  is  another  lawyer  who 
knew  enough  to  quit  the  profession  and  amass  a  fortune. 
After  successfully  following  the  law  for  years  in  Illinois,  and 
holding  a  State  office,  Ed  retired  years  ago  and  has  since  lived 
like  the  lordly  gentleman  he  is.  A  trifle  thick  of  hearing,  he 
now  uses  his  ears  as  his  apology  for  dropping  the  law,  travel- 
ing through  Europe  and  America,  and  having  a  royal  good 
time  everywhere ;  but  the  true  reason  is  probably  found  in  the 
fact  that  he  simply  grew  weary  of  the  game.  Then,  wealth 
begets  leisure,  study,  reflection,  and  an  appalling  indifference 


58  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  the  daily  struggle  at  the  bar.    But  through  life  he  continues 
his  study  of  law  and  literature,  and  thinks  all  the  time. 

A  dozen  years  ago  he  and  two  of  his  brothers,  Luke  F. 
and  Medford  B.  Wilson,  were  sued  in  different  jurisdictions 
on  identically  the  same  stock  subscriptions  and  notes  to  a  bank, 
and  each  for  a  large  sum.  Among  many  other  lawyers,  I  was 
defending.  Upon  careful  investigation,  Ed  S.  Wilson  and  I 
concluded  that  upon  principle  and  right  there  could  be  no  re- 
covery. The  precise  point  had  not  then  been  ruled  on,  and  we 
had  no  end^  of  trouble  in  our  vain  efforts  to  convince  our  co- 
counsel  that  our  contention  was  and  must  be  correct.  Against 
our  joint  protest,  after  years  of  litigation,  the  two  brothers  at 
last  compromised  for  comparatively  trifling  amounts;  but  Ed 
continued  to  fight  his  case.  The  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  passed 
upon  our  exact  proposition  not  long  ago,  and  in  the  final  trial 
of  his  case  Ed  won  out. 

Among  other  sins  of  omission  and  commission,  this  stal- 
wart gentleman  is  a  sort  of  a  Populist,  a  free-trader  in  politics 
and  a  free-thinker  in  religion.  Just  now  he  is  engaged  with  a 
bishop  of  the  Church  in  a  newspaper  discussion  of  the  Bible 
question :  Did  the  Hebrews  of  the  Old  Testament  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul?  As  each  knows  as  much  or  as 
little  as  the  other,  whatever  the  profession  and  argument  may 
be,  no  one  really  knows  anything  about  the  subject,  and  the 
outcome  of  the  wrangle  can  have  but  one  result — bad  bloou. 
Still,  thinkers  must  do,  think,  and  say  things,  or  the  millennium 
will  be  upon  us  unawares. 

KANSAS. 

MARCUS  A.  Low,  Topeka,  was  born  in  Maine,  reared  in 
Illinois,  and,  because  of  ill  health,  spent  a  part  of  our  war  period 
in  California,  where  he  and  Bret  Harte  and  Edwin  R.  Sill 


LAWYERS  59 

wrote  and  tnougnt  and  dreamed  and  then  organized  the  Golden 
Gate  Literary  Society.  Soon  after  the  war  he  located  in  Mis- 
souri, where  for  years  he  owned  and  wrote  editorials  for  the 
Hamilton  News,  and  in  1874  formed  a  law  partnership  with 
the  writer.  Our  firm  was  shortly  increased;  the  partnership 
became  Shanklin,  Low  &  McDougal,  with  offices  at  Trenton 
and  Gallatin,  and  thus  continued  until  my  removal  to  Kansas 
City  in  1885.  Within  a  year  thereafter  Mr.  Low  removed 
to  Topeka,  and  has  ever  since  there  held  the  position  of  gen- 
eral attorney  for  the  Rock  Island  Railway  Company,  with 
jurisdiction  over  all  their  lines  of  road  south  and  west  of  Iowa. 

Mr.  Low  enjoys  the  unique  distinction  of  never  seeking 
or  filling  a  public  office.  He  knows  more  law,  and  better  where 
to  find  it  and  how  to  apply  it,  than  any  other  lawyer  I  ever  met, 
and,  singularly  enough,  knows  more  of  everything  else  than  of 
law ;  but,  absorbing  and  easily  becoming  master  of  all  else,  it 
was  strange  to  me  that  he  should,  as  he  did,  grow  thin  and  pale 
and  sick  in  his  efforts  to  learn  to  play  the  violin.  That  was 
the  only  thing  he  ever  failed  in. 

In  the  forty  years  I  have  known  and  been  associated  with 
him,  he  has  admitted  to  me  just  once  that  he  had  erred  on  the 
law.  He  may  err,  but  was  never  known  to  admit  it  except  that 
one  time. 

He  never  gives  advice  unless  asked  for  it,  and  seldom 
even  then.  He  is  known  as  "the  silent  man,"  and  talks  less 
on  business  and  can  say  more  on  paper  in  fewer  words  than 
any  one. 

When  the  Rock  Island  Railway  was  being  constructed 
through  Kansas,  a  delegation  of  the  big  men  of  the  short-grass 
country  was  sent  to  see  Mr.  Low  about  the  location  of  the 
depot  for  their  town.  The  nearer  they  got  to  Topeka  the 
smaller  they  became,  while  Low  got  bigger  all  the  time.  Upon 


60  RECOLLECTIONS 

arriving  at  Rock  Island  headquarters  the  now  frightened  dele- 
gation urged  their  spokesman  to  go  up-stairs  and  confer  with 
the  Company,  alias  Low,  and  report.  He  agreed  to  do  so,  and 
was  gone  up  to  the  office  a  long  time.  When  at  last  he  re- 
turned, this  spokesman  said:  "Gentlemen,  all  I've  got  to  say 
is,  that  Low  will  never  quarrel  with  his  wife ;  the  damned  fel- 
low won't  talk  back."  Urged  by  the  committee  to  repeat  all 
that  he  and  Mr.  Low  said,  this  spokesman  finally  answered: 
"Well,  I  said  so  and  so,  and  all  that  Low  said  was,  'Good 
morning'  when  I  first  went  in  and  'Good  day,  sir,'  when  I 
came  away." 

WILLIAM  H.  ROSSINGTON,  Topeka.  Last  year  this  great 
lawyer  and  sweet  singer  passed  to  the  beyond  at  his  home. 
When  first  he  went  to  the  Kansas  bar,  now  thirty  years  ago, 
and  largely  through  his  influence,  the  young  lawyers  of  Topeka 
organized,  and  for  many  years  maintained,  a  class  for  the  study 
of  the  rules  of  procedure  and  practice  in  chancery  cases.  So 
apt  did  they  become  that  Federal  judges  have  assured  me 
they  were  often  compelled,  in  that  practice,  to  interfere  and 
protect  the  outside  members  of  the  bar  against  the  skill  and 
learning  of  Topeka  lawyers,  and  that  this  was  especially  true 
as  to  Rossington  and  George  C.  Clemens.  To  many  this  class 
of  learning  is  a  sealed  book,  and  if  met  face  to  face  on  the 
public  highway,  some  of  our  profession  would  not  recognize 
the  difference  between  equity  procedure  and  the  plan  of 
salvation. 

Mr.  Rossington  not  only  knew  and  practiced  the  law,  but 
had  at  his  tongue's  end,  and  was  the  rarest  person  of  his  day 
in  the  ready  solution  of,  every  problem  relating  to  the  origin, 
history,  and  application  of  the  curious  in  law,  history,  and 
literature. 

BENJAMIN  F.  STRINGFELLOW,  Atchison,  came  from  Vir- 


LAWYERS  61 

ginia;  he  was  one  of  the  early  attorneys-general  of  Missouri, 
but  in  Territorial  days  removed  to  and  died  in  Kansas.  In 
my  early  practice  I  often  met  him  in  the  courts  of  the  counties 
of  Clay,  Clinton,  Platte,  and  Buchanan,  and  to  me  he  seemed 
a  marvel  in  the  trial  of  a  cause,  while  some  of  the  clearest, 
strongest,  and  best  arguments  I  ever  heard  in  the  Supreme 
Court  fell  from  the  lips  of  this  great  orator  and  lawyer. 

He  told  me  of  his  being  called  before  the  senators  and 
icpresentatives  of  the  South,  at  Washington,  and  of  his  speech 
explaining  to  them  just  how  Kansas  might  well  be  made  a 
slave  State,  by  sending  thither  their  slaves  in  active  charge 
and  control  of  men  who  would  work  and  see  to  it,  too,  that  the 
negroes  worked.  The  South  sent  its  slaves  in  the  '505,  as 
Stringfellow  advised,  but  with  and  in  charge  of  them  a  lot  of 
young  bloods  who  preferred  to  drink  whisky  toddy,  run  horse- 
races, and  fight  game-cocks.  The  world  knows  the  result. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Atchison  railroad  bridge  across 
the  Missouri  River,  about  1874,  many  speeches  were  made  by 
men  who  knew  things.  Among  other  things,  General  String- 
fellow  solemnly  said:  "I  hear  much  talk  about  repudiating 
the  payment  of  the  bonds  which  this  city  issued  to  raise  the 
money  to  construct  that  bridge.  That 's  all  wrong.  Why,  Mr. 
President,  I  am  here  to  say  that  in  thirty  years  I  have  not 
drawn  a  solvent  breath,  nor  scarcely  a  sober  one,  yet  I  'd  cheer- 
fully murder  the  man  who  plead  either  fraud  or  limitation 
to  a  suit  on  any  one  of  my  notes  of  hand." 

JOHN  P.  USHER,  Lawrence.  After  a  legal  career  of  un- 
usual usefulness  in  Indiana,  and  especially  as  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  in  the  Cabinet  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Judge  Usher 
located  at  Lawrence  as  the  general  counsel  of  the  Union  Pa- 
cific Railway,  and  there,  at  his  home,  I  spent  a  day  with  him,  on 
some  now  forgotten  law  business,  along  about  1873.  He  then 


62  RECOLLECTIONS 

impressed  me,  as  he  always  did  in  the  courts,  as  a  lawyer  and 
man  of  great  power  and  ability.  In  going  from  the  railway 
station  to  his  house  on  that  day,  the  bus-driver  advised  me  to 
walk  over  the  bridge  across  the  Kansas  River,  as  the  water 
was  then  very  high;  but,  thinking  it  safe,  I  said,  "No,  I  '11  ride 
over,"  and  did.  But  just  as  I  was  freshening  up  a  bit  at  the 
old  Eldridge  House,  a  servant  rushed  in  and  said  the  bridge 
had  gone  out.  I  was  the  last  person  to  cross  it.  Later  on  Usher 
died  at  Lawrence;  but  when  one  recalls  that  the  town  was 
founded  in  1854,  to  make  Kansas  a  free  State,  its  record  of 
strife  and  bloodshed  in  the  later  '505,  as  well  as  its  scholarly 
people,  the  reason  of  this  old  fighter  and  patriot  for  locating 
there  becomes  apparent  to  all  who  knew  the  man. 

KENTUCKY. 

GEORGE  W.  CRADDOCK,  Frankfort.  While  waiting  in  his 
city  years  ago  to  orally  argue  the  Lamkin  will  case  in  the  Court 
of  Appeals,  I  became  acquainted  with  their  unusually  strong 
bench  and  bar,  and  among  them,  Craddock.  This  old-timer 
was  still  a  boy  at  the  bar — in  fact,  at  several  bars.  One  night 
he  was  in  my  rooms  at  the  Capital  Hotel,  among  other  guests, 
and  the  subject  under  discussion,  along  with  toddies,  was 
heraldry.  Judge  Montfort,  of  their  Circuit  Court,  was  there, 
and  knew  the  meaning,  history,  and  intention  of  every  heraldic 
design  of  earth.  Craddock  knew  much  of  it,  while  I  was  the 
silent  novice.  Early  the  following  morning  Craddock  invited 
me  to  accompany  him  over  to  the  Court  of  Appeals  to  hear 
him  argue  a  land  case,  and  I  went.  En  route  he  remarked  that 
maybe  he  had  taken  just  one  toddy  too  many  in  my  rooms 
the  night  before,  and  to  steady  his  shattered  nerves  we  re- 
paired to  and  stopped  at  a  drink  emporium  on  the  way.  He 


LAWYERS  63 

ordered  "a  Sampson  with  the  hair  on,"  while  I  took  the  uni- 
versal nip  of  that  country — a  toddy.  Having  no  sort  of  idea 
of  his  tipple,  I  noticed  that  in  the  bottom  of  a  tumbler  Crad- 
dock  first  put  in  half  an  inch  of  white  sugar,  then  filled  his 
glass  with  old  Bourbon  and  smilingly  stirred  it  with  a  spoon 
until  the  admixture  was  complete;  then,  with  unexampled 
satisfaction,  he  drained  his  glass.  His  tipple  had  the  strength 
which  the  Book  says  Sampson  had  before  Delilah  severed  his 
locks,  and  to  Craddock  the  name  was  appropriate.  We  went 
into  court.  By  the  time  his  case  was  called,  Craddock's  nerve^ 
brain,  and  the  law  were  all  his,  and  a  clearer,  better,  stronger 
legal  argument  I  never  heard. 

WILLIAM  LINDSAY,  Frankfort.  Among  other  offices  filled 
by  this  native  of  Virginia,  ex-Confederate,  and  great  lawyer, 
were  those  of  Judge  of  their  highest  court  and  U.  S.  senator 
from  Kentucky.  We  first  met  in  Judge  Craddock's  law  office 
at  Frankfort,  and  were  introduced  by  our  mutual  friend,  Pat- 
rick Upshaw  Majors.  Lindsay  then  weighed  near  300  pounds 
and  his  face  was  strongly  suggestive  of  jowl  and  greens,  while 
I  was  thin  and  spare.  My  mother  was  a  lineal  descendant 
of  the  first  American  Lindsay,  and  Judge  Lindsay  and  I  were 
of  the  same  blood  and  kin ;  but  he  did  not  know  this.  Looking 
quickly  from  the  Judge  to  myself,  Majors  said:  "Pardon  me, 
gentlemen,  but  from  certain  lines  in  your  faces  you  two  must 
be  of  blood  kin."  The  relationship  was  soon  traced  in  a 
definite  and  satisfactory  way.  Then  Judge  Lindsay  said  that  if 
we  indeed  were  of  kin,  I  might  have  heard  the  story  of  the  clan. 
To  me  his  story  had  been  familiar  family  history  from  my 
earliest  recollections,  and  was,  as  repeated  by  him,  substan- 
tially this :  From  very  early  Colonial  days  the  American  Lind- 
says were  Southern  planters;  that,  following  the  custom  of 
time  and  country,  these  Lindsays  always  lived  in  their  own 


64  RECOLLECTIONS 

houses,  on  the  hill  and  in  the  country,  and  did  not  believe  that 
any  gentleman  ever  could  live  in  any  other  way,  as  the  town 
was  made  for  and  fit  to  be  lived  in  by  no  one  save  shopkeepers, 
blacksmiths,  and  others  who  had  to  work;  that  in  those  days 
it  was  for  generations  the  custom  of  the  male  members  of 
our  clan  to  remain  at  home,  ride  around  and  superintend  and 
direct  the  work  on  their  plantations  all  the  week,  until  Sat- 
urday morning  came  around;  that  then  they  rode  on  horse- 
back to  their  county  seat  or  other  trading  town,  first  trans- 
acted their  weekly  business,  and  that  done,  they  always  drank 
toddies  until  the  shank  of  the  evening,  when  they  started  home- 
ward, and  then,  if  they  found  they  could  get  into  the  saddle 
without  assistance,  they  always  knew  they  had  not  had  enough, 
and  went  back  for  another  drink ! 

The  typical  Virginian  is  an  aristocrat;  their  Kentucky 
descendants  are  democrats;  and  up  to  the  day  of  his  death 
William  Lindsay  possessed  all  the  best  traits  of  both. 

PATRICK  UPSHAW  MAJORS,  then  a  scholarly,  retired  mem- 
ber of  the  same  bar,  was  to  me  a  marvel  in  his  way.  Without 
a  moment's  hesitation  he  knew  and  cheerfully  gave  the  his- 
tory of  any  family  that  settled  upon  any  one  of  the  English- 
speaking  isles  in  the  past  three  hundred  years,  and  knew  more 
about  heredity  and  human  faces  than  anyone  else  I  ever  met. 
Many  a  time  he  pointed  out  persons  and  told  me  just  how 
each  was  the  direct  descendant  of  someone  who  had  done 
a  given  great  deed  either  across  the  water,  or  in  Colonial  days, 
or  in  some  war  in  this  country.  And  in  one  of  the  many 
unheard-of  family  histories  he  gave,  he  once  told  me  just 
how  I  was  of  blood  kin  to  Zerilda,  the  mother  of  the  notorious 
James  boys  of  Missouri 

History  says  that  Santa  Anna,  the  once  distinguished 
general  of  the  Mexican  Army,  was  a  native  of  Jalapa,  Mexico ; 


LAWYERS  65 

but  Majors  once  told  me  of  a  long  talk  he  had  at  Frankfort 
with  Santa  Anna  while  that  gentleman  was  en  route  to  Wash- 
ington at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Mexico  in  1848,  in  which 
the  two  agreed  on  this :  That  the  mother  of  Santa  Anna  was 
of  the  clan  Lindsay,  married  a  man  named  Sanders,  and  the 
two  lived  together  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kentucky  River  in 
that  State,  where  Santa  Anna  was  born ;  that  his  mother  died 
at  his  birth  ;  that  soon  thereafter  his  father  fled  from  Ken- 
tucky to  Mexico  with  the  infant,  still  in  arms ;  that  at  Jalapa 
he  was  adopted  and  reared  by  a  Mexican  family;  and  that, 
just  prior  to  his  death,  his  father  had  confessed  that  he  was 
charged  with  a  Kentucky  crime,  and  then  told  Santa  Anna 
the  strange  story  of  his  life. 

Another  curious  story  that  this  ruthless  destroyer  of 
the  written  once  told  me  was  that  at  one  time  he  and  his 
brother  Sam  owned  and  edited  The  Yeoman,  a  Frankfort 
newspaper;  that  they  had  a  private  library  of  thirty-five 
thousand  volumes,  were  well  to  do,  and  felt  it  their  duty, 
as  well  as  pleasure,  to  entertain  at  their  Southern  home 
all  newspaper  men  who  came  to  Frankfort ;  that  among 
other  correspondents  they  were  dining  one  evening  just  after 
the  battle  of  Perryville,  in  1862,  was  a  young,  serious- 
faced,  silent  correspondent  of  a  Northern  newspaper,  whom 
my  friend  closely  studied.  At  the  close  of  the  dinner,  and 
in  the  library,  Judge  Majors  said  to  this  young  man  that 
from  his  face  he  must  have  been  born,  or  was  closely  related 
to,  a  family  of  his  name  that  used  to  live  in  that  State  up  at 
Nicholasville.  The  young  man  protested  that  this  could  not  be 
true ;  that  there  was  not  a  drop  of  Southern  blood  in  his  veins ; 
that  he  was  intensely  loyal  to  the  Federal  Government  and 
had  never  been  in  the  State  until  sent  there  as  a  war  corre- 
spondent ;  and  closed  by  asserting  that  his  ancestors  of  his  name 


66  RECOLLECTIONS 

came  to  this  country  in  the  "Mayflower."  From  the  library  the 
Judge  first  took  a  volume  containing  an  alphabetical  list  of 
all  who  came  over  on  the  "Mayflower,"  and  next  a  book  giving 
a  like  list  of  all  who  came  to  America  in  the  next  sixty  years ; 
but  in  neither  appeared  the  name.  This  omission  was  quickly 
accounted  for  by  the  young  man  upon  the  theory  that  the  two 
books  were  compiled  later  and  that  their  writers  were  not 
familiar  with  or  careful  of  their  subjects.  Before  retiring  for 
the  night,  however,  the  young  gentleman  called  Judge  Majors 
aside  and  apologized  for  his  persistence,  urged  his  loyalty  to 
the  principles  he  advocated,  and  said  it  would  injure  him  with 
his  people  and  paper  if  the  truth  were  known ;  but  then  con- 
fessed that  he  had  been  born  at  Nicholasville,  Kentucky.  The 
name  of  that  brilliant  young  war  correspondent  was  and  is 
Whitelaw  Reid. 

While  I  could  never  be  quite  sure  as  to  the  accuracy  of 
his  stories,  yet  he  dwelt  in  memory  upon  the  good  old  fighting 
times  when  every  Kentucky  gentleman  prided  himself  on  being 
"half  a  hoss  and  half  an  alligator" ;  while  for  hours  I  listened 
•enchanted  to  personal  reminiscences  of  his  old  Frankfort 
friends,  Theodore  O'Hara,  Richard  Menefee,  Dr.  Sanders, 
Henry  Honore,  Charles  Julian,  Elijah  Rise,  Ben  Hardin,  Ben- 
jamin Gratz,  John  Mason  Brown,  Thomas  Lindsay,  and  many 
others  whom  I  never  knew.  Truth  and  fiction  from  his  lips 
were  always  alike  interesting  to  me. 

MARYLAND. 

About  two  years  after  my  admission  to  the  bar,  Mis- 
souri clients  sent  me  to  Hagerstown,  Maryland,  to  look  after 
their  interests  in  a  large  case  that  had  lain  there  in  chancery 
since  early  in  the  '505.  The  title  of  the  case  is  immaterial,  but 
it  was  known  as  "the  Long  will  case"  and  was  numbered  "4444, 


LAWYERS  67 

equity."  From  the  bushels  of  papers  in  it,  I  soon  saw  that  gen- 
erations of  lawyers  had  been  in  the  case,  and  that,  among 
others,  nearly  every  member  of  that  bar  then  represented  some 
angle  or  side  of  it.  Although  abolished  many  years  ago  in 
England,  yet  the  rules  of  practice  once  prevailing  in  its  High 
Court  of  Chancery  are  now  followed  in  Maryland,  as  in  our 
Federal  Courts,  and  under  its  terms  and  conditions  every  law- 
yer of  that  State  seemed  an  adept  in  all  the  rules  of  procedure, 
pleading,  and  practice  in  that  branch  of  the  lex  scripta. 

After  long  and  close  work,  our  case  was  at  last  all  un- 
earthed, recast,  revived,  and  won.  Our  share  of  the  net  pro- 
ceeds aggregated  many  thousands  01  collars.  In  our  many 
legal  wrangles  at  the  Hagerstown  bar,  the  lawyers  here  named 
all  appeared  in  that  case,  and  as  now  recalled  their  chief  char- 
acteristics were  these : 

WILLIAM  H.  SCHLEY  was  an  old-fashioned  Southern  gen- 
tleman and  an  excellent  lawyer,  in  addressing  court  or  jury, 
but  always  preferred  to  make  an  apt  Latin  quotation  to  win- 
ning his  case.  His  law  office  was  on  the  ground  floor  of  the 
main  street,  and  at  the  close  of  each  argument  his  unfailing 
custom  was  to  repair  to  his  consultation-room  and  from  an 
old-time  jug  there  take  at  least  one  good  long  solemn  drink 
of  "Maryland  rye,  suh;  the  choicest  in  the  land,  suh."  He 
came  originally  from  Frederick,  in  that  State,  and  more  than 
once  told  me  of  a  little  stone  house  that  had  been  used  for  the 
same  purpose  there  since  early  Colonial  days ;  of  how  the  rich 
planters  of  the  nearby  valley  of  the  Cumberland  had  for  gen- 
erations daily  started  to  the  town  of  Frederick,  but  could  never 
get  past  and  invariably  remained  all  day  at  the  house  where 
such  excellent  drinks  could  always  be  had;  and  that  during 
all  the  years  this  old  stone  house  had  borne  the  suggestive 
name  of  "Speed  the  Plow.'' 


68  RECOLLECTIONS 

Louis  E.  McCoMAS  was  then  an  able  and  brilliant  young 
lawyer,  was  later  U.  S.  senator  from  his  State  for  a  full  term, 
and  died  down  at  Washington  only  recently  as  a  Justice  of 
some  Federal  Court. 

HE-NRY  KYD  DOUGLAS  was  then  the  most  gallant  and  hand- 
some gentleman  of  the  Maryland  bar  and  one  of  its  foremost 
public  orators;  when  I  knew  him,  he  had  been  on  the  Con- 
federate side  of  the  Civil  War  and  was  once  an  honored  aide 
de  camp  on  the  staff  of  General  "Stonewall"  Jackson. 

MINNESOTA. 

ELL  TORRANCE,  Minneapolis,  went  from  his  father's  farm 
into  the  Union  Army,  came  westward  when  the  fighting  ended, 
located  in  Missouri,  became  a  Judge  at  Linneus  in  1872,  was 
active  and  enthusiastic  as  a  young  Republican,  made  speeches 
for  his  party,  went  as  delegate  to  many  conventions,  served 
as  chairman  of  the  Congressional  Committee,  and  moved  to 
Minneapolis  in  1881.  Except  for  this  removal,  our  life  lines 
ran  exactly  parallel;  we  had  lived  in  the  same  district,  not 
many  miles  apart,  and  each  had  visited  the  home  of  the  other 
many  a  time.  In  all  these  years  he  was  both  great  and  good, 
and  I  was  sorry  to  see  him  go.  In  his  new  home  up  north 
he  soon  became  deservedly  prominent  and  popular. 

So  in  1902  I  was  proud  to  see  my  friend  again  as  he  rode 
at  the  head  of  the  column  as  the  Commander-in-chief  of  the 
G.  A.  R.,  and  again  watch  him  on  the  grand  stand  at  Wash- 
ington, alongside  of  General  James  Longstreet,  late  of  the 
C.  S.  A.,  with  other  dignitaries,  as  he  reviewed  that  wonder- 
ful procession  of  our  war  veterans ;  carrying  in  their  ranks 
the  remnants  of  many  a  battle-scarred  flag  that  we  had  fol- 
lowed in  boyhood,  as  once  more  the  boys  of  1861-5  paraded 
the  streets  of  the  Nation's  capital  down  at  Washington.  At 


LAWYERS  69 

such  a  time  it  seemed  strange  that  another  thought  should 
come  up,  but  it  did.  For  I  reflected  upon  the  days  of  our  youth 
and  early  manhood ;  of  how  we  had  shouted  ourselves  hoarse 
as  we  told  the  people  of  Missouri  the  old,  old  story,  -that  a 
given  election  was  by  far  the  most  important  of  our  times. 
That  same  cry  still  goes  up,  and  maybe  the  young  still  believe  it, 
as  we  did  long  ago.  But  as  the  hair  grows  thinner  and  grayer 
the  average  American  begins  to  learn,  and  by  1902  we  two 
realized  the  truth  and  wisdom  of  the  immortal  sentiment — 
"God  reigns  and  the  Government  at  Washington  still  lives." 

In  the  summer  of  1882,  my  wife  and  I  spent  our  vacation 
on  a  tour  of  the  northern  lakes,  en  route  stopping  and  visiting 
at  Toledo,  Put-in-Bay,  Detroit,  Duluth,  the  Falls  of  Mmnehaha, 
and  rounding  up  at  the  Nicollet  Hotel  in  Minneapolis.  Care- 
less and  improvident  always,  while  alone  in  the  world  I  was 
indifferent  as  to  whether  friends  should  lay  me  away  or  the 
potter's  field  be  my  final  resting-place ;  so  money  never  counted, 
while  the  other  kind  of  trouble  sometimes  hurt,  and  the  sole 
question  was :  Is  the  cash  at  hand  to  pay  for  the  particular 
thing  I  want — not  need?  My  wife,  however,  had  more  prac- 
tical sense,  and  at  her  suggestion  we  there  took  an  account  of 
stock,  only  to  find  that  our  joint  cash  capital  was  ninety-five 
cents.  She  was  dismayed,  for  there  we  were,  in  their  best 
hotel  as  if  millions  were  in  our  pockets,  strangers  in  a  strange 
land,  over  one  thousand  miles  from  home.  My  own  normal 
condition  was  to  go  broke  away  from  home,  yet  someway  I 
always  got  back,  and  that  situation  rather  amused  me.  So 
I  lighted  a  fresh  cigar,  took  up  Al  Blethen's  daily  paper,  quoted 
that  Biblical  story  about  never  having  seen  "the  righteous 
forsaken,  nor  their  seed  begging  bread,"  and  was  proceeding 
to  enjoy  life  in  my  own  philosophical  way,  when  Mrs.  Mc- 
Dougal  happened  to  cast  her  eagle  eye  just  across  the  street 


70  RECOLLECTIONS 

from  our  rooms  and  called  my  attention  to  a  window  sign 
which  bore  the  legend,  "Ell  Torrance,  Law  Office."  Both 
had  overlooked  the  fact  that  he  lived  there,  nor  did  we  know 
that  succor  was  so  near.  But  the  timely  discovery  of  this 
old  friend  settled  everything ;  we  soon  met ;  our  monetary  em- 
barrassment was  ended,  and  together  with  our  wives  we  fished 
and  boated  for  days  up  at  Lake  Minnetonka. 

Early  in  1884  I  determined  to  remove  from  Gallatin  to 
some  larger  city,  where  I  could  pursue  my  profession  and  at 
the  same  time  remain  at  home  and  become  acquainted  with 
our  children.  A  close  and  careful  investigation  was  made  of 
then  existing  conditions,  with  this  rather  surprising  result: 
ninety-four  per  cent  of  our  greatest  American  lawyers  were 
transplanted  from  country  towns  to  the  great  cities,  and  of 
these,  ninety  per  cent  were  originally  fanners'  boys;  while 
the  money  end  of  litigation  was  either  upon  the  decrease  or 
at  a  standstill  in  all  our  larger  cities  save  New  York,  Kansas 
City,  and  Minneapolis,  where  it  was  on  the  increase.  To 
further  look  over  the  Western  field,  wife  and  I  again  went 
northward  and  again  were  the  guests  of  Judge  and  Mrs.  Tor- 
rance, at  Minneapolis.  While  our  wives  remained  in  the  city 
discussing  religion  and  tea  and  dress  goods  and  shopping  day 
after  day,,  the  Judge  and  I  were  off  to  the  lakes  on  another 
fishing  expedition.  There  we  were  guests  at  a  hotel  kept  by  a 
lop-eared  corpse  (other  name  not  recalled)  and  his  wife,  and 
often  wondered  why  that  fellow  did  not  have  the  decency  to 
die,  so  that  his  buxom  and  pretty  wife  could  remarry  some 
lusty  young  brute  and  live  happy  ever  afterward.  Within  a 
few  weeks  after  we  left,  this  young  tavern-keeper  did  become 
an  angel,  and  on  account  thereof  his  widow  promptly  com- 
mited  suicide!  Why?  Dios  sabe  (God  knows).  But  neither 
of  us  ever  understood  women  anyway.  Concluding  that  Min- 


LAWYERS  71 

neapolis  must  always  rely  upon  its  wheat  and  lumber  interests, 
and  that  there  could  be  no  limit  to  the  growth  and  development 
of  Kansas  City,  we  decided  upon  a  home  here.  While  we 
were  guests  of  the  Torrances,  the  National  Encampment  of  the 
G.  A.  R.  for  1884  was  held  at  Minneapolis.  But,  as  Kipling 
says,  "that  is  another  story,"  and  must  here  come  under  the 
title  of  "Soldiers." 


NEW  MEXICO. 

JOHN  Y.  HEWITT,  White  Oaks,  is  today  a  clever,  level- 
headed, learned  lawyer.  He  was  born  and  reared  in  Ohio, 
went  to  Kansas  and  was  there  an  official  of  early  Territorial 
days,  served  throughout  the  Civil  War  in  the  2nd  Regiment 
of  Kansas  Cavalry,  and  thence  went  down  onto  the  New 
Mexican  frontier  in  1879.  He  has  since  then  lived  at  White 
Oaks,  and  has  there  been  a  lawyer,  mining  and  newspaper 
man,  as  well  as  Department  Commander  of  the  G.  A.  R.,  and 
is  now  a  Democratic  member  of  the  Territorial  Council  from 
a  Republican  district. 

Ever  since  his  residence  there  I  have  been  part  owner 
of  the  properties  of  the  Gallinas  Mining  and  Smelting  Com- 
pany in  his  county,  and  since  1881  I  have  spent  many  of  my 
summers  at  and  about  our  mines,  with  headquarters  in  Judge 
Hewitt's  home  town.  During  all  these  years  I  have  known 
him  rather  closely  as  a  professional,  social,  genial  gentleman. 

When  I  first  went  into  the  country,  White  Oaks  was  a 
busy,  bustling  mining  town,  with  more  good,  honest,  honor- 
able, up-to-date,  men  and  women  in  it  than  any  other  place  of 
its  size  I  have  known.  Then  it  was  ninety-five  miles  to  the  near- 
est railroad ;  now  the  nearest  station  is  only  twelve  miles  away, 


72  RECOLLECTIONS 

at  Carrizozo ;  but  the  town  is  neither  so  large  nor  so  prosperous 
as,  it  once  was. 

I  spent  much  of  the  spring  and  summer  of  1902  at  White 
Oaks,  for  I  was  far  from  being  well.  In  their  kindness  and 
attention  such  old  -  timers  as  Hewitt,  Ozanne,  Sager,  Bull, 
Paden,  Spence,  Taliaferro,  Cavanaugh,  and  a  lot  of  others, 
were  always  unremitting;  and,  when  able,  I  joined  "the  gang" 
at  4  P.  M.  sharp  every  afternoon  for  a  social  game  of  cards 
in  the  back  room  of  the  Little  Casino,  a  saloon  there,  then 
kept  by  Captain  John  Lee.  We  all  wore  blue  cotton  over- 
alls, and  if  anyone  gave  a  thought  to  aught  but  the  game,  I 
never  suspected  it.  And  sometimes  we  were  joined  by  a  bright 
little  Frenchman,  who  lived  in  a  little  cabin  just  up  the  gulch, 
and  whenever  he  made  a  particularly  good  play,  it  was  his 
custom  to  exclaim,  "Sair,  it  do  beat  heil  how  Chesus  lofe  me!" 
While  this  frog-eater  knew  the  game  and  played  it,  the  strong- 
est hand  ifi'  the  bunch  was  played  by  old  Dick  Cavanaugh. 

Soon  after  I  left  there  in  1881,  Emerson  Hough  struck 
the  town  and  practiced  law  for  two  or  three  years  at  White 
Oaks.  This  native  of  Loudoun  County,  Virginia,  sailed  his 
bark  on  the  troublous  sea  of  our  profession  for  only  a  few 
years,  and  then  had  the  good  sense  to  quit  the  law  and  en- 
gage in  making  money  by  writing  books.  He  wields  a  facile 
pen  and  has  written  many  good  books.  I  have  read  them  all ; 
but  his  one  novel  that  always  interests  me  is  his  "Heart's 
Desire,"  for  that  was  and  is  White  Oaks.  Hough's  descrip- 
tions there  given  of  people  and  climate  are  true  to  life  and 
place,  and  for  years  I  have  been  familiar  with  almost  every 
character  he  brings  upon  the  stage,  and  with  every  mountain, 
arroya,  ranche,  and  plain  mentioned.  Nothing  can  be  finer 
than  his  Tom  Osby — a  real  name  and  character  of  that  coun- 
try— and  I  still  believe  the  Dan  Anderson  of  that  book  in  the 


LAWYERS  7^ 

main  portrays  the  life  and  history  of  my  lawyer  friend  Hewitt, 
while  the  original  still  swears  that  this  character  is  purely 
fictitious.  With  his  wife,  some  four  years  ago,  Hough  revis- 
ited White  Oaks  and  wrote  up  in  Field  and  Stream  his  per- 
sonal experiences  and  his  old  friends  there,  in  a  most  charm- 
ing manner. 

Not  in  good  health  again,  as  the  direct  result  of  hard 
close  work  in  an  Osage  Indian  case  at  Washington,  I  returned 
to  New  Mexico  last  year,  in  charge  of  our  youngest  daughter, 
Florence.  After  leasing  our  mines  up  in  the  Gallinas  Moun- 
tains, we  visited  Corona  and  Carrizozo,  and  then  spent  the 
summer  at  White  Oaks  as  the  guests  of  Judge  Hewitt.  He 
is  the  principal  citizen  of  the  place,  and  owns  much  stock  in 
the  Old  Abe  Mining  Company  there,  with  other  property  all 
around  him.  His  good  wife  has  for  years  lain  in  the  White 
Oaks  cemetery ;  they  had  no  children,  and  this  soldier,  law- 
yer, and  philosopher  now  lives  all  alone  in  his  big  adobe  man- 
sion on  the  side  of  old  Carrizo  Mountain  and  in  sight  of  his 
law  offiice,  with  books  and  papers  and  pictures  in  every  guest- 
room, while  the  mountain  view  from  his  front  porch  is  an 
unfailing  delight.  The  Judge  and  Florence  prepared  our  break- 
fast and  luncheon  there  at  the  house,  but  in  the  evening  we 
dined  over  in  town  at  the  Hotel  Gallacher.  Hewitt  daily  either 
drove  or  walked  me  to  regain  my  strength;  and  such  moun- 
tain horseback  rides  as  my  daughter  had  there  are  never  to  be 
forgotten.  Friends  drove  us  on  visits  to  many  of  the  ad- 
jacent towns  ;  but,  with  a  retinue  of  servants  and  friends,  Judge 
Hewitt  gave  us  our  most  pleasant  outing.  This  consisted  of 
a  nine-days  drive  of  over  two  hundred  miles  through  the  moun- 
tains, aroun.l  Nogal  Peak  and  Sierro  Blanche,  camping  out 
every  night,  in  that  soft  climate,  and  en  route  spending  two 
profitable  and  (to  daughter)  novel  days  among  the  Mescalera 


74  RECOLLECTIONS 

Apache  Indians  at  their  Reservation  on  the  head-waters  of  the 
Rio  Tularoso.  After  this  trip,  my  daughter  and  a  young  gen- 
tleman, to  whom  she  had  plighted  her  hand  long  before,  sud- 
denly determined  to  marry.  His  name  is  Ralph  M.  Roosevelt. 
As  he  was  all  right  in  all  ways  and  Florence  was  twenty-three, 
there  was  no  possible  objection  to  the  match,  and  what  was  I 
to  do?  He  wanted  to  marry  my  beloved  baby,  and  for  that 
reason  I  felt  like  using  a  shot-gun  on  him,  but  did  not.  So, 
late  in  the  afternoon  of  September  7,  1908,  they  were  duly 
married  in  Judge  Hewitt's  parlors  at  White  Oaks,  and  he  and 
I  alone  witnessed  both  the  ceremony  and  marriage  certificate. 
That  night,  as  per  program,  the  Judge  gave  them  a  big  party, 
and  introduced  the  bridal  couple  to  the  surprised  guests;  all 
danced  till  "the  wee  sma'  hours,"  while  1  quietly  withdrew  and 
went  to  bed  at  midnight.  The  town  and  its  people  were  always 
good  to  me ;  I  like  to  visit  them,  and  so,  accompanied  by  my 
good  wife,  I  went  back  there  this  year,  and  Mrs.  McDougal 
and  I  were  again  the  guests  of  my  friend. 

On  last  Memorial  Day,  May  30,  1909,  we  three  first  re- 
paired to  the  cemetery  near  by  and  solemnly  decorated  the 
graves  of  loved  friends  who  will  rest  and  sleep  there  until  the 
judgment  day,  beneath  the  shadows  of  mighty  mountains; 
and  then,  from  place  and  scenes  so  familiar  to  her,  we  wrote 
and  mailed  to  daughter  Florence,  at  her  new  home  in  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  this  letter: 

"Beloved : 

"From  where  the  rays  of  Heaven's  sweet  sunshine  first 
kiss  the  crest  of  peaceful  Patos,  beam  their  noon-day  warmth 
on  frowning  Carrizo,  cast  their  light  on  majestic  Lone,  and 
lastly  bestow  their  good-night  benediction  upon  the  golden 
crown  of  wondrous  Baxter;  and  from  every  canon,  arroya, 
gulch,  arid  mesa  around  'Heart's  Desire,'  two  old  soldiers  of 
the  Republic,  for  whom  youth's  cannon  and  musket  are  now 
forever  dumb  and  war's  sword  sheathed,  on  this  sacred  day 


LAWYERS  75 

of  their  holiest  memories  waft  to  you,  across  mountain,  desert, 
plain,  prairie,  and  stream,  on  this  the  twenty-fourth  anni- 
versary of  your  happy  birth,  their  warm,  gentle,  tender,  and 
loving  congratulations. 

"Faithfully,  HENRY  CLAY  McDoucAL. 

"Official:  JOHN  YOUNG  HEWITT. 

"Emma  F.  McDougal, 

"A.  D.  C." 

The  average  man,  who  works  without  ceasing  and  thinks 
of  nothing  else,  may  make  and  save  money;  constant  reading 
and  reflection  may  bring  the  world's  knowledge  to  anyone; 
but  wisdom  is  always  rare  and  blesses  only  the  few.  Love 
and  cherish  him  who  combines  wealth,  knowledge,  and  wis- 
dom, for  he  is  seldom  found.  His  name  is  John  Young 


NEW  YORK. 

Louis  C.  KRAUTHOFF.  From  a  poor,  struggling  German 
boy,  when  first  we  met  at  Jefferson  City,  by  his  unaided  efforts, 
close  application,  and  sterling  integrity,  this  young  man  has 
come  up  through  all  the  grades  of  the  law  to  his  present  lofty 
position  at  the  bar  of  the  Nation's  metropolis.  For  more  than 
ten  years  he  was  a  member  of  the  Kansas  City  bar,  and  here 
did  such  excellent  legal  work  that  he  became  the  recognized 
and  actual  leader  of  our  National  Water  Works  Company 
in  its  long-drawn-out  and  hard-fought  litigation  with  this  city. 
His  splendid  abilities  called  him  from  here  to  Chicago,  and 
thence  to  the  ultimate  home  of  so  many  of  our  greatest  Ameri- 
can lawyers  —  the  city  of  New  York. 

WHEELER  PECKHAM,  of  the  same  bar,  in  private  life  was 
one  of  the  strongest  and  tenderest  of  men;  but  in  court  he 
was  never  happy  unless  in  a  row  with  the  Court  and  with 
opposing  counsel  and  witnesses.  His  battle  royal  with  Mr. 


76  RECOLLECTIONS 

Justice  Brewer  in  the  waiting-room  of  the  dinky  little  way- 
station  at  North  Ferrisburg,  Vermont,  in  1895,  remains  in 
memory  now  as  one  of  the  heaviest  engagements  I  ever  wit- 
nessed. Brewer  had  a  summer  home  near  this  station.  We  had 
defeated  Peckham's  side  upon  some  question  in  our  Water 
Works  litigation,  and  from  that  decision  he  wished  to  appeal. 
Upon  that  particular  question  the  Justice  leaned  our  way,  and 
I  had  but  little  to  say.  Peckham  fought  for  his  appeal ;  Brewer 
opposed  it.  The  combatants  were  intellectual  and  legal  giants 
and  their  masterful  fight  of  over  an  hour  was  at  the  time 
printed  in  full  in  the  papers  of  the  country.  When  it  ended, 
Peckham  and  I  walked  the  platform  waiting  for  the  belated 
train,  and  with  the  pride  and  enthusiasm  of  youth  he  there 
gave  me  an  account  of  his  early  legal  struggles  up  in  Minne- 
sota and  ultimate  triumph  in  the  State  of  his  birth,  and  when 
the  train  came,  we  went  together  to  New  York. 

During  Cleveland's  second  term  as  President,  he  nom- 
inated Peckham  for  office  as  one  of  the  Justices  of  the  U.  S. 
Supreme  Court.  Not  knowing  the  inside  facts,  I  do  not  here 
speak  by  the  card,  but  have  always  suspected  the  members 
of  that  Court  of  convincing  the  Senate  that,  on  account  of  his 
known  contentiousness,  Wheeler  Peckham  was  not  a  fit  man 
for  that  bench.  While  not  confirmed,  yet  he  died  great  as  both 
man  and  lawyer. 

ELIHU  ROOT,  although  then  a  young  man,  was  the  gen- 
eral counsel  of  the  old  Hannibal  and  St.  Joseph  Railway  Com- 
pany about  the  middle  of  the  '705,  and  in  private,  as  well  as 
in  his  positions  as  Cabinet  officer  and  now  U.  S.  senator  from 
New  York,  I  have  often  seen  and  studied  the  man  and  his 
methods  ever  since.  In  all  places  he  has  demonstrated  the 
fact  that  he  is  the  same  clean,  level-headed,  genial,  easily  ap- 
proached lawyer,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  our  people  have 


LAWYERS  77 

come  to  esteem  him  as  the  strongest  and  ablest  American  to- 
day in  public  life.  The  reason  for  this  is  found  in  the  saying 
of  some  forgotten  sage,  that  he  has  always  thought  and  worked 
with  his  strength  of  body  and  mind,  his  learning,  wisdom, 
intelligence,  and  conscience,  and  therefore  his  conclusions  must 
be  and  always  are  correct. 

In  Root's  law  office  in  New  York  in  1876,  and  in  the 
interest  of  a  banker  of  that  city,  an  able  and  learned  law 
friend  of  mine,  the  late  George  Wood  Easley,  prepared  a 
written  opinion  upon  some  question  relating  to  our  Mis- 
souri railway  bonds.  The  subject,  statute,  and  decisions  bear- 
ing upon  the  question  were  all  familiar  to  Mr.  Easley  and 
myself,  and  his  opinion  was  short  and  pointed.  Happening 
in  that  city  at  the  time,  Easley  asked  me  what  he  should 
charge  for  his  opinion.  The  question  seemed  so  easy,  the  an- 
swer so  obvious,  and  the  opinion  so  short,  that  I  guessed  its 
value  off  at  $100.  Easley  and  I  concurred  in  the  belief  that 
this  sum  would  be  a  big  fee  up  in  North  Missouri  where  we 
practiced;  but  Mr.  Root,  who  had  heard  our  talk,  suggested 
that  the  charge  should  in  no  event  be  less  than  $1,000,  and 
further,  that  Easley 's  client  would  the  more  readily  invest  his 
money  if  the  fee  were  fixed  at  five  or  ten  times  that  amount. 

While  in  the  law  practice  in  the  city  of  New  York  about 
1878,  a  young  hare-brained  lawyer,  whose  name  is  here  im- 
material, challenged  Root  to  fight  him  a  duel,  and  in  reply 
Elihu  only  said :  "I  know  of  no  law  that  can  keep  a  man  from 
making  a  damned  fool  of  himself."  Every  effort  was  made  to 
keep  the  row  from  the  ears  of  his  good  mother,  who  had  long 
been  ill,  lest  the  sad  news  should  bring  on  a  relapse ;  but  when 
finally  the  whole  story  leaked  out,  the  only  comment  by  the 
placid  Mrs.  Root  was,  "I  didn't  think  Elihu  would  use  such 
language." 


78-  RECOLLECTIONS 

In  1900,  and  while  he  was  Secretary  of  State>  EHhu  Koot 
and  Edward  Henry  Harriman,  the  railroad  wizard  of  the 
world,  who  died  only  yesterday  (September  9,  1909),  were 
here,  the  guests  of  this  city.  We  then  gave  them  a  banquet  at 
the  Kansas  City  Club,  and  both  not  only  made  speeches,  but  a 
most  favorable  impression  upon  those  of  our  people  who  had 
not  previously  met  them. 

OKLAHOMA. 

TIMOTHY  JOHN  LEAHY,  Pawhuska.  For  more  than  a 
dozen  years  this  fearless  young  man  and  able  lawyer  has 
stood  like  a  stone  wall  between  the  Osage  Tribe  of  Indians 
and  the  inside  and  outside  grafters  who  have  preyed  upon 
that  naturally  truthful  and  once  happy  people.  He  ably  rep- 
resented his  district  as  a  member  of  the  convention  which 
framed  the  new  Constitution  of  Oklahoma,  and,  preferring  the 
freedom  and  independence  of  his  lucrative  law  practice  to  a 
public  office,  has  lately  declined  an  offered  judgeship.  His  ster- 
ling integrity  and  straightforward  course  toward  people,  bench, 
and  bar  have  won  for  him  throughout  a  vast  scope  of  country 
the  title  of  "Honest  John  Leahy,"  and  modestly  does  he  bear 
that  high  honor.  He  married  into  the  Osage  Tribe,  and  with 
his  accomplished  wife  and  four  children  spends  no  little  time 
in  travel,  but  for  the  most  part  devotes  his  attention  to  the 
practice  of  his  profession. 

The  Osage  Tribe  of  Indians  forms  the  wealthiest  part  of 
our  population,  estimated  at  $25,000  per  capita  when  their 
rolls  were  closed  in  1907,  and  has  had  a  most  curious  and  in- 
teresting history  for  many  past  generations.  In  1895  the  rights 
of  four  hundred  and  forty-five  members  of  that  tribe  were 
questioned,  and  in  1907  the  rights  of  many  of  these,  along; 


LAWYERS  79 

with  others,  were  again  contested  upon  various  grounds.  In 
both  instances  Mr.  Leahy  appeared  for  the  contest ees,  as  their 
legal  representative,  while  I  was  on  that  side  for  what  was 
locally  known  as  "the  Omaha  family."  In  the  contest  of  1896-8, 
with  Judge  Warwick  Hough,  of  St.  Louis,  I  was  often  for 
months  at  Washington;  while  in  the  contest  of  1907-8  1  ap- 
peared for  this  family  of  forty-nine  members,  alone,  and 
Leahy  then  represented  nearly  all  the  other  contestees.  In 
this  last  contest  John  and  I  were  much  at  Washington,  and 
worked,  studied,  argued,  and  fought  together  for  many  months 
there,  and  naturally  I  came  to  know  the  man  and  value  the 
lawyer.  My  clients  were  all  mixed-bloods,  and  through  their 
mother  were  originally  members  of  the  Omaha  Tribe;  but 
through  their  father  all  rightfully  left  the  Omahas  about  twenty 
years  ago,  and  then  became  members  of  the  Osage  Tribe  of 
Indians.  Hence  both  contests  finally  involved  their  rights 
to  their  Omaha  land  allotments,  as  well  as  all  tribal  rights  as 
Osages.  For  them  I  appeared  at  Pawhuska,  took  depositions 
for  many  days  up  on  the  Omaha  Reservation  in  Nebraska,  and 
never  let  up  anywhere  along  the  line  until  both  contests  were 
won  on  every  issue.  Although  vast  interests  were  at  stake 
and  our  side  finally  came  out  ahead,  yet  the  game  was  not 
worth  the  candle.  I  made  a  common  mistake  in  not  bearing 
in  mind  that  I  was  no  longer  a  boy.  Leahy  was  young,  active, 
efficient,  willing,  but  his  hands  were  full,  for  he  had  more 
clients  than  I.  Being  in  Washington  without  associate  or  cli- 
ent, I  attempted  to  do  and  did  everything  myself;  my  printed 
brief  alone  covering  eighty-seven  pages.  The  direct  result  of 
this  long  work  and  worry  was  a  mental  collapse,  with  broken 
ribs,  from  which  my  recovery  was  painfully  slow;  but  now 
a  year  of  enforced  idleness  and  illness,  travel,  rest,  and  taking 
the  world  easier  than  ever  before,  have  brought  me  out  all 


SO  RECOLLECTIONS 

right.     It  is  a  pleasure  to  add  that  Leahy  won  all  his  cases, 
save  for  one  family,  and  his  suit  in  that  case  is  still  pending. 

In  days  of  old,  among  the  unaffected  Indians  and  the  early 
white  pioneers  of  Indian  Territory,  Leahy's  country  was  an 
ideal  place  in  which  to  camp  out  and  hunt,  fish,  boat,  rest,  and 
loaf.  -  But  advancing  civilization  brought  them  Statehood,  ad- 
venturers, good  citizens,  grafters,  education,  laws,  churches, 
schools,  prohibition,  game  and  fish  wardens,  etc.,  with  all  their 
attendant  good  and  evil.  So,  in  silence,  with  emotions  ming- 
ling both  hope  and  regret,  I  have  watched  across  the  border- 
land, as  all  these  changes  have  come,  and  have  seen  the  old 
order  of  things  pass  away  forever. 


TEXAS. 

GEORGE  E.  MILLER,  Fort  Worth.  Trying  cases  in  court 
against  and  then  with  a  real  lawyer  is  much  like  soldier  life 
in  war-times;  in  either  case  the  man  becomes  known  inside 
and  out.  So  by  this  time  I  know  George  E.  Miller  well.  He 
is  a  native  of  Mississippi,  but  went  to  Texas  early,  and  when 
first  I  met  him  there  in  Wichita  Falls,  had  just  closed  a  term 
on  the  bench  as  their  Circuit  Judge.  With  a  cloud  of  other 
attorneys,  I  was  employed  in  two  big  bank  cases  against  the 
Wilsons  down  in  the  Judge's  country,  years  ago;  I  went  to 
Archer  City,  and  there  procured  a  change  of  forum  in  each, 
and  later  argued  questions  of  law  and  fact  as  they  came  up  in 
the  U.  S.  Circuit  Court  at  both  Dallas  and  Fort  Worth.  Miller, 
along  with  many  other  lawyers,  was  on  the  other  side.  With 
the  others  the  sailing  was  easy;  but  not  with  Miller,  and  when 
he  got  the  floor,  the  unexpected  always  happened  and  I  never 
knew  what  was  coming  next.  He  knew  the  complicated  plead- 


LAWYERS  81 

ing  and  practice  of  that  State  as  few  lawyers  ever  know  any- 
thing, and  was  at  home  in  all  phases  of  these  cases. 

Later  on,  he  practiced  for  some  years  at  the  Kansas  City 
bar  and  we  were  together  in  several  cases;  notably  in  one  to- 
contest  the  will  of  one  of  our  wealthy  citizens  who  had  been 
called  hence.  Mild-mannered,  genial,  and  gentle  in  all  other 
places,  Miller  is  a  perfect  fiend  on  his  feet  and  argues  questions 
of  law  and  fact,  to  either  court  or  jury,  with  most  consummate 
skill  and  ability.  Unless  a  halt  be  called  to  eat  or  sleep  or  nip, 
Miller  thinks,  acts,  and  talks  law  all  the  time,  and  no  doubt 
dreams  about  law  cases  by  night;  but  when  switched  from 
that  to  history  or  literature,  the  surprise  is  that  he  is  also 
equally  familiar  with  that  field.  When,  or  how,  or  where  he 
picked  all  this  up,  Dios  sabe,  but  it  is  his. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

ASHLEY  M.  GOULD,  a  native  of  Massachusetts,  was  for 
some  years  an  employee  of  the  Department  of  Justice  at  Wash- 
ington ;  he  came  West  and  practiced  law  for  half  a  dozen  years,, 
and  then  returned  to  the  national  capital,  where  he  is  now 
serving  a  life  sentence  as  one  of  the  strongest  and  ablest 
Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia.. 

While  in  the  Department  of  Justice,  Gould  once  testified 
for  the  Government  in  one  of  the  Star  Route  trials,  which  was 
defended  by  Colonel  Bob  Ingersoll.  On  cross-examination 
the  Colonel  went  into  details  as  to  Gould's  employment,  salary,, 
and  where  and  how  he  lived,  ate,  etc.  This  so  nettled  the 
young  man  that  he  answered  rather  flippantly,  and  at  last  said 
he  "managed  to  eat  three  square  meals  each  day."  The  genial 
Colonel  smiled,  calmly  looked  his  young  friend  over,  and  then 
drawled  out:  "Ah!  Mr.  Gould,  you  don't  look  it."  On  the 


82  RECOLLECTIONS 

bench  today,  the  now  portly  Justice,  who  was  then  thin,  still 
bears  in  mind  the  Colonel's  drawl  and  protects  the  young 
witness. 

While  in  Kansas  City  we  were  law  partners  for  a  time, 
under  the  firm  name  of  McDougal  &  Gould,  and  but  few 
have  a  keener  insight  into  the  merits  of  any  question  of  law 
or  fact  than  Gould.  When  he  left  here  to  return  East  because 
of  the  settled  melancholia  of  his  wife,  I  fell  heir  to  his  old- 
time  friend  John  Stevens.  Together  we  often  drove  through- 
out this  city  and  down  to  Independence  in  the  old  days,  and  I 
recall  now  that  on  one  occassion,  on  our  return  home,  John 
repeated  from  memory  every  word  and  line  of  "Locksley 
Hall"  and  "The  Raven,"  while  between-times  he  talked  of  his 
beloved  friend  Gould. 

SANDERS  WALKER  JOHNSTON.  While  this  venerable  jurist 
was  more  than  a  decade  my  senior,  yet,  for  nearly  forty  years 
prior  to  his  death,  on  January  I,  1905,  he  was  my  running- 
mate  at  Washington,  and  was  not  only  a  great  lawyer,  but  one 
of  the  most  courtly,  genial,  accomplished,  and  scholarly  gen- 
tlemen of  his  time.  He  was  a  native  of  Kentucky,  but  early 
went  to  Ohio,  and  became  one  of  their  captains  in  an  Ohio 
regiment  in  the  war  with  Mexico,  in  the  division  commanded 
by  General  Franklin  Pierce.  Upon  the  approval  of  the  Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Bill  on  May  30,  1854,  President  Pierce  at  once 
appointed  his  war  comrade,  Johnston,  as  the  first  U.  S.  Judge 
of  the  newly  created  Territory  of  Kansas,  and  he  was  later 
associated  on  that  bench  with  Chief  Justice  Le  Compte  and 
associate,  Rush  Elmore.  Here  he  served  with  his  usual  abil- 
ity for  two  years,  when  a  disagreement  arose  over  some  polit- 
ical decision,  and  Justice  Johnston,  without  fault  of  his,  was 
removed  from  his  office  by  the  President.  Then  he  at  once 


LAWYERS  83 

opened  a  law  office  at  Leavenworth,  Kansas,  and  continued  in 
the  practice  of  his  profession  there  until  his  health  failed  him 
in  1864,  when  he  removed  to,  and  thereafter  resided  at,  the 
national  capital.  Upon  his  death  I  wrote  a  sketch  of  his  life 
for  the  Kansas  City  Journal,  which  is  also  preserved  by  the 
State  Historical  Society  of  Kansas  in  its  archives  at  Topeka. 
One  of  my  many  pleasures  in  the  old  days  at  Washington 
was  the  enjoyment  to  the  full  of  all  the  good  the  gods  provide 
at  Harvey's,  Chamberlain's,  or  Wormley's,  with  such  princes 
as  Judge  Johnston,  Dick  Wintersmith,  General  Dan  Sickles, 
John  Chamberlain,  Tom  Ochiltree,  and  others  of  their  kind. 

Many  personal  incidents  in  the  busy  and  long  life  of  this 
gentle  man  should  be  preserved  in  print ;  but  Judge  Johnston 
was  so  modest  that  his  friends  could  never  prevail  upon  him 
to  undertake  it.  Among  others, -however,  I  now  embalm  a  few 
of  the  stories  as  he  told  them  to  me: 

Away  back  while  he  was  yet  a  young  country  lawyer  in 
Ohio,  Johnston  journeyed  down  to  Cincinnati  for  the  first  time, 
to  consult  his  friend  and  associate,  William  H.  Lytle,  about 
a  law  case  they  had  together,  and  accepted  Lytle's  invitation 
to  attend  the  theater.  The  great  Matilda  Herron  was  on  the 
boards  in  "Camille."  As  a  young  man  I  saw  Matilda  in  the 
same  character  years  later,  and  her  rendition  of  her  part  had 
precisely  the  same  effect  upon  me;  the  only  difference  was 
that  I  was  silent,  while  Johnston  was  not.  Lytle  and  Johnston 
looked  and  listened  as  long  as  the  latter  could  stand  it.  Then 
he  whispered:  "Lytle,  this  is  a  damned  shame;  here  we  two 
stalwart  young  men  sit  and  look  on  while  that  poor  girl  plays 
on  for  our  entertainment  when  she  is  dying  of  consumption; 
I  can't  stand  it  any  longer.  Let 's  go  away  now."  Lytle 
was  an  old-stager  and  knew  things,  and  Johnston's  earnestness 
struck  his  "funny  bone" ;  so  he  kept  on  repeating  the  protest 


84  RECOLLECTIONS 

until  their  section  of  the  theater  was  in  a  roar  of  suppressed 
laughter.  Those  on  the  stage  were  disconcerted,  and  at  their 
request  three  policemen  were  sent  in  succession  to  that  part  of 
the  house.  To  each  of  these  Lytle  repeated  the  story,  and  one 
after  the  other  left  laughing.  Johnston  and  Matilda  were  both 
guests  at  the  old  Burnett  House,  and  the  next  morning  he  re- 
ceived an  urgent  request  to  visit  Matilda  in  her  apartments, 
and  did  so.  The  little  and  then  healthy-looking  young  woman 
introduced  herself,  and  said :  "Mr.  Johnston,  I  have  heard  and 
know  all  about  what  you  said  at  the  play  last  night;  tell  me 
frankly,  were  you  then  in  earnest  and  did  you  mean  what  you 
said?"  Always  gallant  as  well  as  truthful,  Johnston  replied: 
"Madam,  as  God  is  my  judge,  I  was  never  more  sincere  in  my 
life."  Calming  herself  after  her  tears  of  joy  and  triumph, 
Matilda  said :  "Unconsciously  you  have  paid  me  the  highest 
compliment  of  my  professional  life.  I  have  studied  con- 
sumption in  most  of  the  hospitals  of  Europe  and  America  for 
years,  and  have  breakfasted,  dined,  and  supped  with  that  dread 
disease,  and  now,  if  I  have  succeeded  on  the  stage  in  so  de- 
ceiving a  strong,  sensible  young  man  like  yourself,  my  cup  is 
more  than  full."  No  matter  when  or  where  she  played  after 
that  morning,  if  Johnston  was  in  town,  Matilda  always  fur- 
nished him  with  a  complimentary  box  for  himself  and  friends. 
This  lawyer  Lytle  afterward  wrote,  among  many  other  com- 
mendable verses,  the  living  lines  of  today  found  in  his  "An- 
tony and  Cleopatra,"  and  later  still  fell  at  the  head  of  his 
command,  as  General  William  H.  Lytle,  on  the  field  at  Chicka- 
mauga  in  1863. 

Judge  Johnston's  first  wife  was  the  daughter  of  General 
Thomas  Kamer,  who,  as  an  Ohio  member  of  Congress,  sent 
Ulysses  S.  Grant  to  West  Point.  There, was  born  to  them  a 
daughter,  named  Mary  Johnston.  Since  her  early  childhood, 


LAWYERS  85 

I  have  taken  a  personal  pride  in  this  girl,  because  she  had  the 
sweetest  voice  to  which  I  ever  listened  and  was  for  years  on 
the  operatic  stage  on  the  Continent  as  Marie  Decca.  The 
Judge  remarried  afterward,  and  one  summer,  not  many  years 
ago,  he  was  spending  a  few  weeks  up  in  the  Blue  Ridge 
Mountains  with  his  wife  and  Mary.  Among  other  places,  they 
visited  a  chapel  erected  in  the  woods  there  to  the  memory  of  one 
of  the  great  ones  of  the  Old  Dominion — Bishop  Mead.  Notic- 
ing that  the  chapel  seats  were  upholstered  with  some  material 
unknown  to  him,  the  inquiring  Judge  was  informed  that  they 
were  "stuffed"  with  the  priceless  writings  of  that  once  famous 
divine !  The  same  party  also  then  visited  a  descendant  of  the 
immortal  Mead,  and  were  there  introduced  by  their  hostess  to 
a  lady  of  uncertain  age,  who,  in  the  courteous  language  of 
her  country,  presented  this  lady  as  "our  guest  from  Jefferson 
County."  While  their  hostess  was  out  of  the  parlor  for  the 
never-failing  cake  and  wine  of  the  valley,  for  the  want  of 
something  better  to  say,  the  Judge  asked  the  guest  how  long 
she  had  been  up  there  as  a  visitor  from  Jefferson,  and,  to  his 
surprise,  received  this  reply:  "Well,  suh,  I  don't  recollect  ex- 
actly, suh,  but  I  came  up  heah  sometime  before  the  big  wahr, 
suh."  Mary  fell  off  her  chair ! 

Originally  their  clan  came  from  bonny  Scotland,  where 
they  were  known  far  and  wide  as  "the  gentle  Johnstons." 
Leisurely  wandering  over  Europe  once,  the  Judge  and  his 
party  were  in  that  vicinity  and  got  off  the  train  at  some  little 
way-station.  Accosting  a  canny  native,  the  Judge  asked  if 
any  of  the  Johnston  clan  lived  around  there  now,  and  was  an- 
swered with,  "Hoot,  mon !  there  is  nane  ither." 

In  private,  Judge  Johnston  always  honored  me  by  ad- 
dressing me  by  my  given  name.  He  had  not  revisited  Kan- 


86  RECOLLECTIONS 

sas  City  since  he  left  this  country  in  1864,  and,  like  other  old- 
timers,  remembered  this  town  as  "that  small  village  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Kaw."  Shortly  before  his  death,  as  I  was 
in  my  rooms  at  Willard's  one  morning,  scanning  our  local 
papers,  the  Judge  came  in,  full  of  talk  as  usual,  and  wanted 
me  to  listen.  I  did  so,  but  unconsciously  kept  hold  of  the 
Journal  I  was  reading.  This  evidently  displeased  him,  for  he 
said :  "Henry,  for  God's  sake  put  down  that  paper ;  -what  the 
hell  could  happen  in  a  little  place  like  Kansas  City?" 

On  one  winter  occasion,  years  ago,  Judge  Johnston  gave 
Senator  Dan  Voorhees,  his  daughter  Mary,  and  myself  a  dinner 
up  at  Cabin  John  Bridge,  above  Washington,  and  drove  us 
thither  in  a  closed  carriage.  En  route  home  our  carriage  was 
enlivened  by  many  old  songs  which  were  given  us  by  the  Sen- 
ator and  Mary,  for  the  dinner,  with  all  its  accompanying  good 
things,  had  been  most  excellent,  and  the  Senator  could  sing 
as  well  as  make  a  speech.  Soon  after  this,  Judge  Johnston 
and  I  made  the  usual  New  Year's  calls  for  the  national  cap- 
ital, and  the  Senator's  house  was  among  our  first  calls.  He 
was  too  ill  to  meet  us  in  person,  but  sent  down  his  regrets. 
Within  a  short  time  after  this  he  joined  the  silent  majority. 
The  Judge  and  I  continued  our  calls,  and  the  last  one  of  the 
day  was  made  at  "Stewart  Castle,"  on  Dupont  Circle.  For 
long  years  I  knew  both  Senator  Stewart  and  his  accomplished 
wife,  then  a  beautiful,  white-haired,  cultivated  woman.  She 
lost  her  life  in  an  automobile  accident  at  San  Francisco,  years 
ago;  while  the  venerable  Senator  closed  his  accounts  down  at 
the  capital  just  the  other  day,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two. 
Mentally  noting  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Stewart  welcomed  many 
foreign  legations  on  that  day  and  talked  in  the  language  ot 
their  country  with  each,  as  we  left  the  house,  upon  inquiry 
as  to  who  she  was  and  where  and  how  she  had  picked  this 


LAWYERS  87 

all  up,  the  Judge  said:  "Why,  she  is  the  daughter  of  old 
Senator  Fdote,  of  Mississippi,  and  has  spent  more  than  half 
her  adult  life  in  travel  and  study." 

In  his  ten  years  on  the  frontier  of  Kansas,  Judge  Johnston 
spent  much  of  his  time  among  the  Indians,  and  few  men  ev- 
er knew  their  characteristics  better.  Naturally  truthful  and 
honest,  the  full-blood  as  well  as  the  mixed-blood  Indian  has 
been  so  long  systematically  robbed,  plundered,  and  corrupted 
by  contact  with  the  whites,  and  particularly  the  missionary, 
that  he  is  now  neither  understood  nor  appreciated.  When 
the  whites  first  established  a  trading-post  at  .San  Francisco, 
over  a  hundred  years  ago,  no  Indian  was  heard  of  who  would 
spend  the  night  there.  They  came  in  their  skins  and  blankets 
and  did  their  trading  at  Frisco,  but  retired  to  the  adjacent 
hills  for  the  night.  Pressed  for  their  reasons  for  this,  an  old 
Indian  at  last  said:  "This  is  shaky  ground."  Frequent 
earthquakes  in  later  years  have  demonstrated  the  correctness 
of  the  old  Indian;  that  ground  was,  always  has  been,  and 
still  is  "shaky."  So  the  older  Indians  protested  against  the 
thick  settlements  around  the  west  bottoms  of  Kansas  City,  at 
North  Topeka,  and  at  Marion  in  Kansas.  "High  waters  come 
and  drown  white  people,"  they  said ;  and  they  were  right.  But 
I  never  so  much  appreciated  the  accuracy  of  their  knowledge 
until  of  late  years  I  have  noted  the  oncoming  of  the  waters 
at  the  places  named. 

As  illustrating  the  susceptibility  of  the  average  Indian 
to  white  influences,  Judge  Johnston  often  told  me  this  incident : 
In  the  early  Territorial  days  of  1855,  Justices  Johnston  and 
Elmore  were  driving  across  the  prairies  from .  the  Shawnee 
Mission  to  hold  court  at  Lecompton,  when  they  espied  a 
blanketed  Indian,  out  in  the  open,  making  a  bee-line  to  inter- 
cept them  on  the  trail.  He  was  standing  alone  by  the  way- 


88  RECOLLECTIONS 

side  when  they  drove  up  and  stopped  their  buggy.  Then, 
without  a  word,  the  consequential  red-skin,  from  the  recesses 
within  his  blanket  somewhere,  fished  out  and  presented  to  them 
a  big  official  envelope  addressed  to  himself.  This  to  show 
that  he  was  a  big  Indian — a  man  of  parts  among  his  people. 
He  then  said  "How?"  and,  speaking  in  very  good  broken  Eng- 
lish, continued:  "Me  good  Christian  Indian;  me  love  God; 
me  love  white  man;  got  any  whisk?"  They  said,  "No." 
Drawing  his  blanket  around  him  as  only  a  dignified  missionary 
convert  to  the  white  man's  faith  can,  the  Indian  slowly  strode 
off  over  the  prairie,  and  simply  said:  "Ugh,  God  dam!" 

I  never  knew  John  Brown,  of  Osawatamie,  personally,  for 
he  was  hanged  in  my  native  State  about  seven  years  before 
I  came  West  and  I  never  saw  him ;  but  under  this  heading  of 
Judge  Johnston  seems  a  good  place  to  correct  some  popular 
and  historical  errors  concerning  John.  When  a  boy  at  home, 
I  read  in  the  paper  the  account  of  John  Brown's  raid  on 
Harper's  Ferry,  and  recollect  that  I  went  to  the  dictionary  to 
see  just  what  that  word  meant,  for  my  attention  had  never 
before  been  called  to  the  word  "raid."  And  when  he  was  ex- 
ecuted at  Charlestown,  in  December,  1859,  f°r  ms  wild  exploit 
and  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  Old  Dominion,  one  lad  within 
that  State  was  thoroughly  satisfied  that  he  had  met  with  a 
just  fate  and  shed  no  tears.  Although  a  Republican  in  politics, 
I  have  not  sympathized  with  either  the  man  or  his  methods, 
for  all  law  should  be  obeyed  while  in  the  statutes,  and  repealed 
if,  and  when,  wrong.  Hence,  since  coming  to  Missouri  in 
1866,  I  have  made  something  of  a  study  of  John  Brown,  and 
not  only  talked  often  with  Judge  Johnston  about  him,  but  also 
with  Robert  T.  Van  Horn,  Daniel  R.  Anthony,  Sr.,  John  Speer, 
Johnson  Clark,  John  Young  Hewitt,  Daniel  Webster  Wilder, 
and  others.  Many  of  these  men  became  citizens  of  Kansas 


LAWYERS  89 

Territory  as  early  as  1854.  In  addition  to  all  this,  I  have 
recently  read  that  great  book  on  the  early  history  of  Kansas 
written  and  printed  by  George  W.  Brown,  now  of  Rockford, 
Illinois.  This  book-writer  owned  and  edited  The  Herald  of 
Freedom,  published  at  Lawrence  in  Kansas,  from  1854  to  1864. 
And  all  these  men  personally  knew  John  Brown,  the  man,  and 
in  the  same  way  knew  what  he  did  in  Kansas  and  how  it  was 
done.  Senator  Johnson  Clark,  who  lived  on  the  Pottawato- 
mie,  in  Miami  County  in  Kansas,  near  by  John  Brown's  head- 
quarters, and  the  famous  "Dutch  Henry  Crossing,"  from  1856 
to  1889,  is  now  a  resident  of  Kansas  City,  and  knew  Brown 
as  well  as  any  one  in  that  Territory,  said  to  me  very  recently : 
"The  picture  found  in  histories  and  magazine  articles  labeled 
'The  Kansas  Cabin  of  John  Brown'  was  in  fact  constructed 
on  land  belonging  to  John  Hanway,  by  his  father,  James  Han- 
way,  and  myself,  as  and  for  a  smoke-house,  in  order  to  cure 
and  preserve  the  meat  of  our  lean  hogs  in  the  great  drought 
which  prevailed  in  Kansas  Territory  in  the  summer  of  1860; 
and  when  John  Brown  was  executed  in  Virginia  in  1859,  tne 
trees  from  which  this  smoke-house  was  built  were  standing 
and  green  in  the  forest.  The  pictured  cabin  is  the  reproduction 
or  one  taken  many  years  later  by  Mr.  Barker,  who  was  a  pict- 
ure man  at  Ottawa,  Kansas.  More  may  be  read  about  both 
Brown  and  myself  at  page  425  of  the  autobiography  of  John 
Speer,  of  Kansas." 

This  Johnson  Clark  was  a  Kansas  State  senator  from 
his  district  in  1862  and  1863;  he  is  a  native  of  Maine,  and  is 
today,  as  he  has  always  been,  a  Republican. 

I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  this  John  Brown  had 
and  has  an  international  reputation ;  that  books,  sketches,  and 
poems  have  been  published  lauding  him  to  the  skies  and  seek- 
ing to  make  him  out  only  a  trifle  lower  than  the  angels;  and 


90  RECOLLECTIONS 

that  he  is  therein  painted  as  a  martyr,  savior,  saint,  and  all 
that.  But  from  my  talks  with  the  gentlemen  whom  I  have 
named  as  well  as  with  many  others  who  knew  all  the  facts  and 
the  man,  and  from  my  reading  and  study  of  Western  men  who 
know  and  think  and  dare  express  themselves  upon  any  public 
or  private  question,  my  own  deliberate  conclusions  relating  to 
the  time  and  place  are :  That  in  the  terrific  struggle  of  the  bor- 
der, from  the  day  Kansas  became  a  Territory,  in  1854,  until  it 
was  made  a  State,  in  1861,  the  lawless  element  on  both  sides  of 
that  conflict  there  feared,  and  made  earnest,  though  often  in- 
effectual, efforts  to  be  and  remain  within  the  letter  of  the  law ; 
and  that  with  them  the  main  question  was:  How  far  may 
or  can  we  go  and  not  openly  violate  the  Constitution  and  laws  ? 
They  tried  to  be  legally  honest.  That  it  was,  and  still  is, 
charitable,  kind,  and  more  consonant  with  the  truth  to  conclude 
that  John  Brown,  James  H.  Lane,  and  William  C.  Quantrell, 
once  of  Kansas,  were  all  either  lunatics,  fanatics,  or  degen- 
erates— probably  a  little  of  each.  Each  was  strong  and  force- 
ful in  his  way;  neither  was  a  petty  thief,  nor  a  direct  murderer, 
yet  no  doubt  each  there  caused  the  death  of  more  than  one 
personal  or  political  enemy  back  in  the  earlier  years.  That, 
although  an  earnest,  restless,  courageous  man  of  more  than 
average  intelligence,  yet  John  Brown  was  not  truthful,  and 
was  a  fanatical  follower  of  those  who  sought  the  freedom  of 
the  Negro  slave ;  that,  during  his  less  than  three  years  there  in 
Kansas,  he  never  at  any  time  owned  a  cabin,  or  a  spring,  or 
a  foot  of  land;  that,  through  his  intemperance  of  speech  and 
lawlessness  of  action,  he  there  did  more  actual  harm  to  the 
righteous  Free  State  cause,  fought  and  won  despite  of  him,  than 
any  one  hundred  Pro-slavery  men  in  Kansas  Territory,  and 
that  he  was  then  and  there  regarded  in  his  own  party,  by  those 
who  knew  him  best  as  a  common  liar,  slave-thief,  and  mur- 


LAWYERS  91 

derer.  Misconception  of  exact  facts,  mistaken  notions  of  al- 
leged patriotic  motives,  or  maudlin  party  sentiment  may  move 
the  many ;  but  such  fawning  flattery  of  the  man  John  Brown,  as 
he  was  well  known  to  Kansas,  led  the  old-timers  to  believe  Tom 
Reed,  of  Maine,  right  in  often  saying  that  written  history  is 
made  up  from  "lies  agreed  upon." 


92  RECOLLECTIONS 

IV 
PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN. 

ANDREW  JOHNSON.  One  morning  in  the  spring  of  1866, 
I  accompanied  U.  S.  Senator  James  A.  McDougall,  of  Cali- 
fornia, to  the  White  House,  to  call  upon  President  Johnson. 
The  Senator  was  my  father's  cousin  and  had  taken  it  into 
his  head  that  I  ought  to  follow  the  life  of  a  soldier,  and  at  his 
request  and  out  of  compliment  to  one  of  his  ardent  supporters, 
the  President  then  tendered  me  the  appointment  as  major  in 
the  regular  Army;  but,  as  I  had  then  been  subject  to  the  orders 
of  my  superiors  since  1861,  I  respectfully  declined  the  honor 
and  the  office,  and  I  am  still  glad  of  it.  In  both  President  and 
Senator  I  recognized  greatness,  but  further  knew  that  both 
were  even  then  comfortably  "full."  Johnson  was  a  U.  S. 
senator  from  Tennessee  both  before  and  after  he  was  Pres- 
ident. While  he  grew  to  be  a  powerful  man  mentally,  yet  at 
the  time  of  his  marriage  he  was  a  poverty-stricken  tailor  at 
Greenville ;  his  old  sign,  "A.  Johnson,  Tailor,"  there  appeared, 
and  he  was  proud  of  it,  while  our  highest  executive  officer; 
his  good  wife  started  him  on  his  way  to  learning  and  to  prom- 
inence, yet  through  it  all  he  always  prided  himself  upon  being 
a  plebeian  and  upon  having  started  in  life  as  an  humble 
mechanic.  Long  ago  I  read  a  speech  of  his,  in  reply  to  the 
taunt  of  some  senatorial  colleague  that  he  was  unworthy  of 
consideration,  for  he  was  "only  a  mechanic,"  in  which  he  ad- 
mitted the  charge  and  reminded  the  Senate  that  God  Almighty 
himself  was  our  first  merchant  tailor,  and  closed  his  self-vin- 
dication by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  "the  Son  of  Man 
was  the  son  of  a  carpenter."  While  then  in  Washington,  in 
the  callow  tenderness  of  blooming  youth,  I  thought  that  half  a 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  93 

dozen  of  us  young  fellows  were  one  night  serenading  the  Pres- 
ident and  his  Cabinet  with  a  brass  band;  but  now  the  im- 
pression is  that  some  politicians  were  back  of  the  scheme  and 
really  furnished  both  band  and  money  for  our  night's  sport. 
However  this  may  have  been,  yet  the  speeches  then  made 
were  all  good;  but  the  strongest,  ablest,  most  vigorous 
of  them  all  was  that  of  the  President  himself.  In  the 
course  of  that  speech  Johnson  returned  his  thanks  to  the 
beneficent  Giver  of  all  good  for  that  "the  members  of 
Congress  and  the  Executive  were  becoming  knit  closer  to- 
gether day  by  day."  His  judgment  was  wrong  in  that 
conclusion,  as  was  later  shown  when  the  same  Congress 
attempted  to  impeach  him  and  oust  him  from  office.  Both 
personally  and  politically  I  was  always  glad  that  movement 
failed.  The  impeachment  of  the  President  at  that  time  would 
have  been  almost  as  great  a  political  blunder  as  that  one  after- 
ward perpetrated  by  my  own  party  in  enfranchising  the  Xegro. 

Mrs.  Johnson  was  an  invalid  and  rarely  seen  by  White 
House  visitors,  and  the  social  functions  of  the  high  office  fell 
upon  the  President's  devoted  daughter.  While  there  I  heard 
of  this  womanly  reply  returned  by  this  Mrs.  Patterson,  and 
thought  all  the  more  of  her  for  it :  A  delegation  of  ladies  said 
she  must  take  the  lead  of  some  swell  society  affair,  but  she 
modestly  declined  the  honor,  upon  the  ground  that  "we  are 
plain  people,  from  the  mountains  of  Tennessee." 

Within  a  few  short  months  after  bidding  President  John- 
son good-bye,  I  landed  at  Gallatin,  Missouri,  and  the  next 
Sunday  attended  church  services  conducted  by  a  good,  pious, 
white-haired  preacher  named  Cooper.  In  his  sermon,  to  bring 
the  matter  down  to  the  comprehension  of  his  hearers,  Brother 
Cooper  compared  the  Father  of  us  all  sitting  on  His  great  white 
throne  up  above  to  the  President  sitting  in  his  chair  of  state 


94  RECOLLECTIONS 

in  the  White  House  at  Washington.  The  comparison  went. 
Maybe  I  looked  grave,  but  I  felt  more  like  a  yell,  for  in  a  flash 
it  came  to  my  mind  just  how  our  President  appeared  when 
last  I  saw  him  in  that  same  White  House,  in  well-worn  slippers,, 
shabby  dressing-gown,  and  a  trifle  exhilarated !  I  readily 
gave  credence  to  this  story  of  Johnson's  last  election  to  the 
Senate:  He  was  making  one  of  his  characteristic  and  power- 
ful public  campaign  speeches  in  Tennessee  when  an  admirer 
nudged  an  opponent  in  the  ribs  and  significantly  said :  "There 
is  life  in  the  old  man  yet."  To  which  the  other  quickly  re- 
sponded: "Yes,  and  there  is  hell  in  him,  too."  Notwith- 
standing his  many  defects,  history  will  yet  write  Andrew 
Johnson  down  as  one  of  the  bravest  and  best  of  our  American 
Presidents. 

ULYSSES  S.  GRANT.  In  the  heat  of  the  campaign  of  1868,. 
I  practiced  on  the  people  in  many  public  addresses  for  Grant, 
and  the  only  good  thing  I  now  recall  about  those  early  efforts 
is  that  some  few  of  those  who  listened  to  my  speeches  are  still 
alive!  Then,  too,  I  wore  a  red  uniform  cap  and  beat  the  bass 
drum  in  a  brass  band  and  joined  other  young  enthusiasts  in 
singing  a  half -forgotten  campaign  song  about  what  a  jolly 
time  we  would  have  in  "turning  Andy  Johnson  out  and  put- 
ting in  Grant."  In  the  Army  and  when  he  was  our  President,. 
I  saw  much  of  Grant  and  met  him  once  after  his  retirement. 
In  all  his  public  career  I  stood  by,  with,  and  under  Grant  (for 
to  me  no  one  could  have  been  greater  or  better),  with  this  one 
single  exception :  I  made  a  political  mistake  in  not  supporting 
him  for  a  third  term  in  1880,  and  was  for  Garfield. 

Grant  had  the  quickest  eye,  as  well  as  the  most  rapid 
and  accurate  judgment,  of  anyone  I  have  known.  When  the 
completion  of  the  Rock  Island  Railroad  was  celebrated  in 
September,  1871,  as  the  Mayor  of  Gallatin  I  joined  our  West- 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  95 

ern  people  and  met  the  west-bound  excursion  train  at  Trenton. 
Grant  was  then  in  his  first  term  and  many  distinguished  guests 
were  in  the  party  as  that  first  through  train  sped  on  its  way 
to  Leavenworth,  Kansas.     I  happened  to  be  in  the  General's 
car  and  was  engaged  in  friendly  talk  with  President  and  Mrs. 
Grant  and  Miss  Nellie  as  our  train  approached  the  Dog  Creek 
trestle  up  in  Daviess  County.     Just  then  a  pompous  official 
came  in  the  car  and,  politely  addressing  Grant,  said:    "Mr. 
President,  this  train  is  now  approaching  the  longest  single 
trestle  between  Chicago  and  Leavenworth  and  I  should  be 
glad  to  show  and  explain  it  to  you."    Just  as  if  always  ready, 
anxious,  and  willing  to  please,  Grant  accepted  the  kindness; 
the  officer  opened  the  car  door  and  motioned  the  General  to 
step  on  the  platform  for  a  full  view,  when  the  wily  Grant 
motioned  the  other  gentlemen  to  go  first.    Then  Grant  closed 
the  door,  took  one  quick  glance  at  the  situation  as  the  train 
sped  on,  and  then  turned  to  me  with  his  sly  twinkle  of  the 
eye  and  simply  said:     "It  ought  to  be  filled."   Many  years 
afterward  the  railway  company  did  construct  a  long,  expensive 
"fill"  at  that  very  spot,  and  travelers  now  cross  that  creek  on 
the  "fill"  which  Grant's  eye  told  him  should  have  been  con- 
structed there  in  the  beginning.    Upon  arrival  at  Leavenworth 
our  party  attended  a  banquet  at  the  old  Planters'  House  that 
night,  presided  over  by  Colonel  D.  R.  Anthony,  and  President 
Grant  became  the  guest  of  Senator  Caldwell.     Next  morning 
we  were  driven  over  the  city  and  the  Government  Reservation 
at  Fort  Leavenworth.     I  was  assigned   to  a   carriage  con- 
taining U.  S.  Judges  Mark  W.  Delahay  and  Henry  W.  Blodg- 
ett.    The  former  was  the  most  versatile  talker  in  Kansas,  and 
throughout  the  drive  embellished  his  every  sentence  with  learn- 
ing, wisdom,  wit,  and  eloquence;  while  the  latter  spoke  rarely, 
mostly  in  monosyllables,  but  always  to  the  exact  point.    That 


96  RECOLLECTIONS 

afternoon  we  went  to  Atchison,  and  thence  to  the  terminus  of 
some  railroad  then  being  constructed  westward,  and  there  on 
the  wide  prairie,  forty  miles  from  town,  Frank  Lumbard  and 
and  his  famous  Chicago  quartette  again  sang  "Old  Shady"  for 
us.  At  another  banquet,  at  the  Otis  House,  Senator  Samuel 
C.  Pomeroy  was  toast-master  that  night.  Our  last  stop  was 
at  St.  Joseph,  where  their  Exposition  was  in  full  blast,  with 
Colonel  Charles  R.  Jennison,  of  Kansas,  presiding  in  the  grand 
stand,  and  Bud  Doble  was  in  attendance  with  the  then  famous 
Goldsmith's  Maid.  As  Grant  passed  through  the  crowd  in  his 
silent  way,  a  gentleman  pointed  him  out  and  said,  "There  goes 
President  Grant,"  and  to  this  a  horsey  native  replied,  "Grant 
hell !  you  can't  fool  me ;  that 's  Bud  Doble ;  I  seen  him  and 
his  hoss  yisterday."  The  two  men  then  resembled. 

RUTHERFORD  B.  HAYES.  As  an  officer  in  the  war,  Gov- 
ernor of  his  State,  and  comrade  of  the  G.  A.  R.,  I  always  liked 
Hayes,  nor  did  I  find  any  fault  with  his  conduct  and  manage- 
ment of  our  public  affairs  as  President ;  but  I  have  never  believed 
that  he  was  either  fairly  or  honestly  entitled  to  this  high  office, 
and  was  sorry  he  accepted  as  final  and  conclusive  the  vote 
of  the  Electoral  Commission.  Indeed,  I  felt  so  sure  that  Mr. 
Justice  Bradley  would  cast  his  vote  the  other  way  as  a  mem- 
ber of  that  commission  that  I  wagered  a  box  of  cigars  on  the 
final  result  with  my  Democratic  friend,  Judge  Joseph  P.  Grubb, 
of  St.  Joseph,  Missouri — and  lost !  So,  since  1877,  commis- 
sions have  been  added  to  my  list,  among  juries  and  courts, 
and  all  classed  as  uncertain. 

JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD.  I  knew  and  liked  Garfield  and 
was  so  glad  of  his  election  that  I  journeyed  down  to  Wash- 
ington solely  to  see  him  inaugurated  as  President  on  March 
4,  1 88 1.  Thereafter  I  watched  his  course  with  unusual  inter- 
est; it  did  not  appeal  to  me.  With  all  his  wondrous  schol- 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  97 

arship,  long  experience  in  public  matters,  great  powers  as  a 
speaker  and  organizer,  yet  in  that  office  he  developed  that 
trait  which  was  once  characterized  by  Chief  Justice  Sherwood, 
of  this  State,  as  "a  pitiable  and  painful  weakness  in  the  dorsal 
region."  So  vanished  another  political  day-dream;  one  added 
to  the  many,  and  the  world  moves  on  just  the  same. 

CHESTER  A.  ARTHUR  was  the  most  polished,  suave,  and 
courtly  gentleman  that  has  occupied  the  Presidential  chair  in 
my  day.  While  he  was  President,  I  once  sat  in  the  round 
room  at  the  White  House  and  heard  and  saw  him  as  he  in 
turn  disposed  of  three  several  senators  and  the  delegations 
accompanying  each.  He  there  displayed  the  rare  faculty  of 
hearing  everything  and  saying  nothing.  When  all  were  gone, 
in  his  own  kind,  good  way,  he  turned  to  me  and,  after  a  warm 
greeting,  asked  what  he  could  do  for  me.  I  answered,  "Not  a 
thing,  Mr.  President;  I  only  called  to  pay  my  personal  and 
political  respects  because  you  are  my  President  and  I  like 
you."  No  urging  upon  his  part  tended  to  change  this  reso- 
lution. He  proved  a  strong,  able,  efficient  Executive;  loved 
the  good  things  of  earth,  his  party,  and  his  friends,  and,  I  now 
think,  should  have  had  the  office  again  in  1884. 

G ROVER  CLEVELAND.  My  attention  was  first  directed  to 
this  man  by  his  unusually  strong,  clear,  and  sensible  veto  mes- 
sages during  his  term  of  office  as  Mayor  of  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 
While  he  was  Governor  of  that  State,  I  kept  my  eye  on  him, 
for  again  he  demonstrated  the  fact  that  he  was  big,  brainy, 
and  fearless.  I  was  in  the  Chicago  Convention  of  1884,  that 
first  nominated  him  for  President,  but,  being  a  Republican 
and  a  personal  friend  of  Elaine,  neither  feared  nor  properly 
considered  Cleveland's  nomination.  His  election  was  a  sur- 
prise. But  when  he  first  went  into  that  office,  as  well  as  in 


98  RECOLLECTIONS 

his  second  term.  I  saw  him  often  and  came  to  have  for  him 
the  highest  possible  regard. 

When  first  I  met  him  at  Washington,  in  1886,  I  was  a 
member  of  the  law  firm  of  Crittenden,  McDougal  &  Stiles; 
and  he  and  my  senior  were  then  politically  at  outs.     In  our 
talk   I  mentioned   incidentally   the  newspaper   rumor   of   his 
contemplated  visit  to  Kansas  City,  and  happened  to  say  that 
I  would  here  show  him  more  attention  and  pay  him  more  re- 
spectful honor  than  would  my  senior  partner.   Quick  as  a  flash 
came  this  happy  response:  "Yes,  I  know  you  are  a  law  partner 
of  Governor  Crittenden  and  a  Republican;  but  no  one  could 
more  appreciate  your  kindness  than  myself;  the  Governor  and 
I  will  be  better  friends  when  we  know  each  other  better."  At  a 
distance,  Cleveland  then  looked  to  me  like  some  great,  sleepy 
animal ;  but  once  right  up  against  and  talking  with  him,  his 
face  and  eyes  had  a  rarely  attractive  charm.     After  his  mar- 
riage at  the  White  House,  I  was  a  guest  for  a  time  at  1301 
K  Street,  N.  W.,  in  Washington ;  his  wife's  niece  attended 
the  Franklin  public  school  just  across  the  corner,  and  it  was 
no  unusual  sight  for  us  to  see  Mrs.  Cleveland  in  her  carriage 
as  she  drove  this  little  girl  to  and  from  that  school.    During 
his  second  term  as  President,  I  spent  a  Sunday  afternoon  with 
the  Clevelands  out  at  their  summer  home  in  the  suburbs  of 
the  city,  and  the  man  then,  as  always,  astonished  me  by  his 
marvelous  grasp  of  both  men  and  measures.    He  was  a  hard, 
close  worker,  never  once  tried  to  fool  himself,  and  his  recrea- 
tion was  in  hunting,  fishing,  and  good  red  whisky;  yet  at  all 
other  seasons  his  public  work  was  unceasing.     A  friend  of 
his  once  made  to  me  the  point  that  Cleveland  would  go  down 
in  history  as  one  of  our  greatest  and  best  American  Presidents. 
In  answer  to  my  question,  "Why?"  he  said:    "There  are  and 
will  be  three  great  public  questions  before  this  country — tariff, 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  99 

currency,  and  civil  service;  the  scholars  of  the  world  believe 
him  right  upon  all  these,  and  scholars  write  history."  In  1887 
he  and  his  wife  visited  Kansas  City.  He  then  made  speeches 
and  laid  the  corner-stone  of  our  Y.  M.  C.  A.  building,  while 
Airs.  Cleveland,  by  her  good  sense,  tactful  bearing,  and  wo- 
manly beauty,  won  the  hearts  of  our  people.  I  spent  the  sum- 
mers of  1890  and  1895  at  Cobb's  Island,  off  the  Virginia  coast ; 
and  Hog  Island,  in  plain  sight,  was  Cleveland's  favorite  shoot- 
ing and  fishing  resort.  When  he  and  his  party  were  reported 
lost  for  three  days  during  his  second  term,  they  were  all  up 
in  a  friendly  cove  into  the  mainland  near  Hog  Island,  and  were 
not  lonesome ! 

While  he  was  President  the  second  time,  I  called  upon 
him  at  Washington  and  urged  Cleveland  to  promote  my  young 
friend  Enoch  Herbert  Crowder  from  a  captain  to  be  a  major 
and  judge-advocate  in  the  U.  S.  Army,  on  the  ground  that 
Crowder  was  then  the  best  lawyer  in  the  regular  establishment. 
Crowder  had  been  a  Daviess-Grundy  County,  Missouri,  boy; 
had  his  full  share  of  field  and  staff  duty;  was  of  tremendous 
industry,  a  student,  thinker,  and  worker,  and  I  liked  him. 
Cleveland  was  deeply  touched  by  my  representations  concern- 
ing the  young  man  and  gave  me  the  closest  attention.  I  rec- 
ollect that  I  closed  my  talk  to  him  by  saying:  "But  there  is 
.another  thing,  Mr.  President,  that  Crowder  would  have  me 
say  if  he  were  here  prompting  me,  and  it  is  my  duty  to  you  to 
say  it  anyway ;  the  fact  is,  Crowder's  father  was  an  old  soldier 
of  the  Republic  and  that  both  he  and  his  son  are  Republicans 
today."  The  rugged  President  knew  and  understood  this  and 
at  once  brought  his  enormous  fist  down  on  his  table  with  a 
whack  and  said :  "By  God,  sir,  I  '11  appoint  him ;  he  is  worthy, 
and  I  want  to  strike  a  death-blow  to  politics  in  our  Army 
anyway."  So  the  President  jumped  Crowder  over  842  other 


100  RECOLLECTIONS 

officers,  gave  him  the  desired  promotion,  and  in  his  many  pre- 
ferments since  then,  that  young  man  has  made  good  at  all  times 
and  in  all  plates.  When  Crowder  is  again  promoted,  as  he 
soon  will  be,  to  the  high  office  of  Judge-Advocate  General  of 
the  U.  S.  Army,  and  I  retire  from  the  law  practice,  I  am 
promised  a  cozy  corner  in  the  War  Department  building  down 
at  Washington  to  smoke  and  read  and  doze  all  day  long,  dur- 
ing my  visits,  with  none  to  molest  or  make  afraid,  and  the 
credit  for  all  this  coming  good  runs  back  to  Grover  Cleveland. 
During  President  Cleveland's  second  term  I  started  to 
Chicago  on  June  30,  1894.  On  account  ot  a  then  impending 
labor  strike,  our  train  was  delayed  the  next  day  at  Joliet,  Illi- 
nois, for  over  twelve  hours ;  but  finally  I  reached  the  great  city 
on  the  last  train  that  went  in,  and  was  there  bottled  up 
ten  days.  From  Joliet  I  wrote  home  as  follows : 

"JOLIET,  July  i,  1894. 

"  'No  life  is  perfect  that  has  not  been  lived — youth  in  feer 
ing,  manhood  in  battle,  old  age  in  meditation.'  All  these 
in  their  order  had  been  his ;  and  now  as  he  neared  the  closing 
scene — the  time  when  his  accounts  with  men  and  women  and 
gods  and  things  must  be  balanced — had  he  not  time  for  'medi- 
tation'? Not  amid  the  trees  and  flowers  and  waters  and 
mountains,  the  chirp  of  the  cricket,  hum  of  bees,  perfume  of 
rose  and  pink  and  honeysuckle  and  sweet-brier,  known  and 
loved  when  life  was  young;  but  in  the  hot,  dry,  dusty  little 
city,  crowded  with  anxious  and  worn  and  travel-stained  fel- 
low-beings, who  are  unable  to  move  either  east  or  west — the 
haunted  face  of  discontented  labor  at  every  step,  the  spirit 
of  dread  unrest  everywhere.  Why?  The  stupidity  of  grasp- 
ing, avaricious  capital,  the  fear  of  so-called  statesmen  and 
journalists,  the  mistaken  sentiment  of  discontented  working- 
men,  had  unwittingly  and  unconsciously  combined  to  stop  the 
wheels  of  travel  and  commerce  and  might  yet  turn  back  to 
where  they  stopped,  in  sunny  France  one  hundred  and  one  years 
ago,  the  hands  of  the  clock  of  human  progress.  God  protect 
America !  It  now  seemed  unable  to  protect  itself  from  these 
disintegrating  forces  at  war  with  each  other  within  its  bor- 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  101 

ders,  each  claiming  the  protection  of  its  laws  and  flag.  When 
or  how  the  end  would  come  could  not  be  guessed,  but  the 
result  must  be  disastrous  alike  to  labor,  capital,  and  country. 
If  the  mad  craze  were  not  soon  stopped  and  patriotic  reason 
again  enthroned,  then  must  come  first  a  period  of  anarchy 
and  later  a  reorganized  and  a  stronger  and  better  form  of 
centralized  government.  Oh  for  the  courageous  patriotism 
of  a  Hamilton,  a  Washington,  a  Lincoln,  the  fearless  sword 
of  a  Jackson  or  a  Grant,  to  lead  us  back  to  paths  of  peace 
through  the  fires  and  unrest  of  this  day ! 

"To  be  within  sight  of  the  promised  land — almost  within 
the  lulling  sound  of  the  cooling  waters  of  the  inland  sea — 
and  yet  unable  to  go  thither,  was  a  strong  reminder  of  the 
unhappy  and  untimely  fate  of  our  old  and  cherished  friend — 
Moses.  H.  C.  McD." 

While  a  guest  at  the  Auditorium  Annex  in  Chicago  dur- 
ing this  strike,  many  unusual  scenes  were  daily  witnessed.  In 
vain  the  President  appealed  to  the  Mayor  of  the  city  and 
Governor  of  the  State,  but  lawlessness  and  anarchy  held  the 
great  city  and  all  within  its  borders  in  the  grip  of  discontented 
labor,  and  unprovoked  riots  occurred  every  hour.  Men,  women, 
and  even  children  were  wild,  the  national  Government  was 
damned,  along  with  everything  that  moved  on  wheels;  the 
city  was  fired  in  many  places  every  night,  railroad  cars  were 
burned,  public  and  private  property  destroyed,  and  such  a  law- 
less spirit  of  unrest  prevailed  as  is  seldom  seen.  Just  in  the 
nick  of  time,  when  no  other  constituted  authority  would  take 
a  stand  for  law  and  order  and  the  best  citizens  of  the  city, 
along  with  its  unwilling  transients,  were  on  the  eve  of  despair, 
President  Cleveland  did  the  right  and  courageous  thing  in 
calling  out  the  Federal  troops.  Had  he  done  nothing  else 
during  his  administration,  that  act  should  forever  stamp  him 
as  one  of  our  greatest  and  best  public  officers,  for  when  the 
soldiers  came  marching  on  to  the  field,  anarchy  hid  its  hydra 


102  RECOLLECTIONS 

head  and  the  Chicago  strike  of  1894  was  soon  a  nightmare  of 
the  past. 

When  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  our  time  shall  have 
passed  away,  the  impartial  historian  will  say  that  the  highest 
type  of  our  Democratic  Presidents,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Andrew  Jackson,  was  represented  in  the  public  acts  of 
Grover  Cleveland.  Each  of  these  two  men  had  a  backbone  like 
a  crowbar,  with  dauntless  courage,  mental  grasp,  and  brains 
in  abundance.  By  reason  of  his  early  environments  and  time, 
Cleveland  was  the  more  scholarly,  and  I  know  it  is  said  that 
Jackson  went  to  his  grave  in  the  firm  belief  that  the  earth 
was  as  flat  as  a  pancake;  yet  to  me  his  lusty  and  lofty 
patriotism  stands  out  today  as  one  of  the  beacon-lights  on 
the  hill-tops  of  our  history,  and  my  admiration  for  the  man 
is  unbounded.  I  was  born  at  the  close  of  the  great  campaign 
of  1844,  my  father  was  an  ardent  Whig,  and  I  had  to  be 
named  for  the  candidate  of  his  party.  It  is  possible  that  my 
high  opinion  of  Jackson  was  somewhat  colored  in  his  favor 
by  a  story  told  me  years  ago  by  George  W.  De  Camp,  who,  in 
1845,  was  a  Pennsylvania  Democrat  and  a  great  admirer  of 
"Old  Hickory."  On  his  home  journey  from  New  Orleans  in 
the  spring  of  that  year,  De  Camp  deflected  his  course  and  went 
to  The  Hermitage  to  visit  the  old  lion,  who  was  near  his  death. 
Jackson  was  in  bed,  but  overheard  the  conversation  between 
De  Camp  and  the  negro  attendant,  and  in  a  firm  voice  said, 
"Invite  the  young  man  in."  De  Camp  entered  the  sick-room 
and  sat  down  before  the  old-fashioned  open  fire,  when  the 
old  soldier  called  for  his  never-failing  pipe  to  clear  away  the 
phlegm  from  his  throat  so  that  he  could  talk  to  his  guest. 
The  negro  lighted  the  pipe  from  a  live  coal  at  the  fire,  from 
it  took  a  few  whiffs  to  start  the  tobacco  burning,  wiped  off 
the  stem  with  his  fingers,  and  handed  the  pipe  to  his  master. 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  103 

Jackson  smoked  in  silence  until  his  throat  and  voice  were 
clear,  partially  dressed  his  wasted  form,  and  then  for  an  hour 
talked  more  patriotism  than  De  Camp  had  ever  heard.  But 
he  said  first:  "And  so  you  are  a  Pennsylvania  Democrat? 
May  God  bless  the  Democracy  of  that  great  State,  for  they 
always  stood  by  and  loyally  supported  Andrew  Jackson." 
President  Polk  had  just  been  inaugurated  and  in  the  talk  the 
young  man  expressed  the  fear  that  Polk  might  not  prove 
equal  to  the  occasion.  But  Jackson  quieted  this  apprehension 
by  saying :  "I  know  James  K.  Polk  well ;  he  is  a  good,  honest, 
sensible  American  statesman  and  will  give  us  a  good  adminis- 
tration ;  the  people  made  no  mistake  in  electing  him  our  Pres- 
ident; nor  would  they  have  made  a  mistake  had  they  then 
elected  that  stalwart  American  of  all  Americans,  Henry  Clay." 

BENJAMIN  HARRISON.  My  first  personal  acquaintance 
with  General  Harrison  began  at  his  home  in  Indianapolis,  and 
I  happened  to  be  present  then  and  heard  him  deliver  his  fare- 
well address  to  his  old  regiment  when  it  was  mustered  out  of 
the  United  States  service  in  the  autumn  of  1865.  It  was  the 
speech  of  a  courageous  American  soldier,  patriot,  and  states- 
man, and  from  that  day  on  to  the  closing  scene  I  watched  the 
wise  course  of  this  great  man.  Many  young  officers  who  had 
attained  distinction  in  the  war  just  closed  were  then  restive 
under  the  paramount  control  of  the  civilian  and  the  civil  law, 
and  no  one  knew  it  better  than  Harrison.  So  in  this  final  talk 
he  reminded  his  old  "boys"  that  every  issue  for  which  he  and 
they  had  entered  upon  the  service  of  their  country  in  the  field 
was  then  decided  by  the  force  and  effect  of  war,  and  decided 
in  favor  of  the  men  who  wore  the  blue.  And  in  his  earnest 
closing  he  said :  "Standing  once  more  upon  the  soil  of  Indiana 
as  citizens  of  this  State,  I  beg  to  remind  you  of  this  additional 
fact:  that  there  is  but  one  thing  for  you  and  for  me  to  do, 


104  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  that  is  for  each  and  every  man  to  drop  back  into  his  old 
place  as  a  citizen  and  for  all  to  work  together  with  the  people 
of  the  East  and  the  West,  the  North  and  the  South,  in  uphold- 
ing and  upbuilding  this  great  country  which  we  have  helped  to 
save." 

In  1874,  many  of  our  people  cried  aloud  for  more  money , 
for  the  times  were  hard.  One  of  our  national  parties  saw 
relief  in  but  one  way,  while  some  of  our  truest  and  ablest 
statesmen  were  wavering.  Yielding  to  public  clamor,  the  Con- 
gress passed  an  act  to  inflate  the  currency,  and  that  bill  was 
before  our  President  for  approval  or  rejection.  So  well-nigh 
universal  was  the  cry  for  currency  inflation  that  but  two 
citizens  of  my  then  home  county  up  in  North  Missouri  op- 
posed this  bill.  The  one  was  a  Virginia  Democrat  named  D- 
Harfield  Davis,  of  Gallatin,  and  the  other  was  myself.  Then 
it  was  that,  in  his  quiet,  thoughtful  way,  Benjamin  Harrison 
slipped  off  alone  to  Bloomington,  Indiana,  and  there  made  the 
clearest  and  best  sound  money  speech  I  ever  read.  With  his 
wondrous  powers  of  condensation,  great  Grant  took  up  that 
speech,  interwove  its  substance  into  his  veto  message,  and  the 
country  was  saved  from  another  curse. 

During  Harrison's  presidential  term  a  coterie  of  his  polit- 
ical enemies  had  purposely  misled  him,  and  he  had  sent  to  the 
Senate  for  confirmation  the  name  of  an  unworthy  anti-admin- 
istration Republican  for  postmaster  of  a  Missouri  city.  To 
untangle  this  skein  and  set  the  President  right,  I  went  to  Wash- 
ington and  called  at  the  White  House  when  the  Executive 
was  in  a  private  conference  with  some  foreign  diplomats.  So 
the  old  door-keeper,  Charlie  Loeffler,  whom  I  had  known  for 
years,  soon  reported  that  no  audience  could  be  had  with  the 
President  on  that  day,  and  advised  me  to  return  at  nine  the 
foliowing  morning.  To  this  unholy  hour  I  demurred,  on  the 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  105 

ground  that  no  one  ever  attended  to  business  that  early.  But 
Loeffler  said:  "The  President  is  an  early  riser;  he  fixed  that 
hour  and  requests  you  to  call  to  see  him,  and  if  in  your  place, 
I  would  do  so."  So  I  was  on  hand  at  the  minute,  and  there 
sat  Harrison  in  his  private  office,  waiting  for  me.  In  the  long, 
friendly  talk  which  followed,  with  a  tinge  of  sadness  on  his 
face  that  I  never  saw  there  before,  Harrison  said:  "No  man 
who  has  never  filled  this  office  can  know  or  appreciate  its  vast 
responsibilities,  and  I  often  retire  at  night  so  tired  of  it  all 
that  I  think  if  I  could  only  return  home  and  resume  my  law 
practice  at  Indianapolis,  no  man  on  earth  would  be  so  well 
satisfied  "  When  my  mission  was  explained  later  on,  he  con- 
curred in  the  view  that  there  was  both  good  sense  and  good 
politics  in  the  desired  change,  and  gave  me  a  penciled  note 
to  this  effect  to  his  Postmaster-General.  This  Cabinet  office 
was  then  filled  by  the  truly  good  John  Wanamaker.  When 
the  President's  note  was  presented,  with  my  brief  and  court- 
eous statement  of  the  exact  facts,  on  that  morning,  I  was  met 
with  the  haughty  and  indignant  protest  of  this  official  against 
any  change,  mainly  on  the  ground  the  he  had  recommended 
that  appointment  and  did  not  want  any  change  made.  That 
tins  mere  hired  servant  should  so  respond  to  one  of  his  mas- 
ters and  sovereigns  was  more  than  one  American  citizen  would 
tolerate,  and  with  some  degree  of  warmth  came  this  quick 
answer:  "1  stand  here  with  the  President's  approval,  rep- 
resenting the  Republican  party  of  Missouri.  We  do  not  intend 
that  any  office  in  that  State  shall  be  held  by  any  man  who 
is  opposed  to  this  administration ;  nor  do  we  care  a  damn 
what  you  may  or  may  not  think  in  the  premises.  Get  me  the 
papers  in  thi^  case"  He  \va?  so  astonished  that,  without  an- 
other wo.'d  lie  went  out,  got  the  paper-,  and  handed  them  to 
me,  and  the  mattei  was  speedily  closed  to  tilt  complete  satis 


106  RECOLLECTIONS 

faction  of  everyone,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Post- 
master-General. 

No  lawyer  of  that  State  ever  said  that  he  was  one  of  their 
best  lawyers ;  but  all  the  members  of  that  great  bar,  regardless 
of  party,  joined  in  the  universal  statement  while  he  lived  that 
"the  best  lawyer  in  Indiana  is  Ben  Harrison." 

At  the  bar,  in  the  Senate,  on  the  stump,  and  as  President, 
I  often  saw  and  studied  this  man.  The  public  looked  upon 
him  as  cold,  distant,  dignified.  He  was  thoughtful  always, 
preoccupied  with  some  difficult  problem  often,  yet  to  me  he 
was  at  all  times  the  same  careful,  generous,  courageous  friend. 
My  judgment  of  him  was  and  is  that  he  brought  to  the  dis- 
charge of  every  public  duty  a  warm  heart  and  a  wise  head; 
and  he  was  certainly  the  clearest-headed  statesman,  the  most 
intellectual  President  of  my  time. 

WILLIAM  McKiNLEY.  When  first  we  met,  we  were  both 
young  soldiers  in  that  which  late  in  the  war  became  the 
Department  of  West  Virginia,  and  he  was  then  a  captain  and 
I  a  private.  Never  personally  close  or  intimate,  yet  we  held 
many  theories  in  common,  and  from  war-times  on  up  until 
the  assassin's  bullet  closed  his  illustrious  career,  we  kept  tab 
on  each  other  and  many  friendly  letters  passed  between  us. 

During  the  Republican  National  Convention  at  Chicago, 
in  1888,  we  met  on  the  street  one  mcrmng,  greeted,  shook 
hands,  and  passed  on;  but  I  have  always  thought  he  never 
knew  he  had  met  a  friend.  The  reason  was  apparent  when 
the  convention  met  two  hours  later.  He  had  received  some 
votes  for  Presidential  nominee  and  a  concerted  effort  was  to  be 
made  that  day  to  ncniinait  him,  and  he  knew  it.  He  arose 
in  his  delegation  before  a  vote  was  had  and  made  tne  most 
honest  as  well  as  the  manliest  speech  tc  wnich  1  evei  listened 
in  a  convention  While  I  dc  not  recall  his  language,  yet  I 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  107 

J 
do  remember  that  he  lold  the  delegates  in  the  most  earnest 

and  impressive  manner,  that  he  was  a  delegate  to  that  con- 
vention instructed  for  and  intending  to  loyally  support  to  the 
end  a  statesman  of  highest  rank  (John  Sherman),  and  that 
no  friend  of  his  could  or  would  thereafter  cast  a  single  vote 
in  his  favor. 

Eight  years  later  I  attended  the  St.  Louis  Convention, 
and  no  one  was  more  highly  gratified  when  McKinley  was 
there  nominated  for  President,  in  1896,  But  only  a  few  weeks 
afterward  I  was  in  attendance  at  the  opposing  convention  in 
Chicago,  and  not  only  saw  and  heard  their  many  public  dem- 
onstrations, but  listened  to  the  great  speech  of  William  J. 
Bryan,  which  there  resulted  in  his  nomination ;  and  as  a  speech 
that  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  to  which  I  ever  listened. 

Upon  my  return  home  from  that  Chicago  convention,  no 
one  could  have  been  more  concerned  for  the  future  of  the 
country,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that  from  all  sections  many  of 
our  most  level-headed  and  conservative  men  were  simply  wild 
on  the  silver  question.  Up  to  that  date  McKinley  had  been 
making  his  national  campaign  turn  on  the  tariff.  So  to  set  him 
right,  as  well  as  my  party,  I  wrote  McKinley  a  long  letter  and 
urged  him  to  switch  from  tariff  to  finance,  telling  him,  among 
many  other  things,  that  while  parties  made  platforms,  the  peo- 
ple made  the  issues,  and  that  they  had  settled  upon  the  prop- 
osition, whether  right  or  wrong,  that  finance  was  the  only 
issue  before  the  people  in  that  campaign.  While  my  stenog- 
rapher was  running  off  this  letter,  I  went  to  luncheon,  and 
there  met  a  gentleman  who  had  nominated  McKinley  three 
times  for  Congress  and  once  for  Governor  of  Ohio,  and,  upon 
being  advised  of  the  substance  of  my  letter,  he  asked  to  see  it, 
and  to  this  I  readily  assented.  So  we  two  came  to  my  office; 
he  read  and  heartily  concurred  in  all  I  had  said,  but  asked 


108  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  was  granted  permission  to  add  a  line  in  his  own  hand- 
writing. In  that  written  postscript  Judge  King  told  McKinley 
that  all  I  had  said  was  true ;  that  he,  too,  had  been  all  over  the 
West  and  knew  the  sentiment  of  all  the  people,  and  joined  me 
in  an  earnest  appeal  for  a  change  in  the  issue  from  tariff  to 
finance.  That  change  was  made  and  the  result  is  known. 

During  his  administration  much  of  my  time  was  spent 
at  Washington  and  I  was  often  in  consultation  with  the  Pres- 
ident. To  me  he  was  always  the  same  smooth,  thoughtful, 
gentle,  tactful  politician,  and  this  trait  of  his  character  was 
never  more  impressed  upon  me  than  once  in  a  call,  not  long 
after  the  "Maine"  was  blown  up,  I  urged  the  appointment  of 
a  young  neighbor  and  friend,  whose  family  from  early  Colo- 
nial times  in  Virginia  had  always  borne  the  same  name  and 
had  been  soldiers.  With  the  deference  which  always  dis- 
tinguished the  man,  the  President  first  assured  me  that  it  would 
always  give  him  pleasure  to  adopt  any  suggestion  of  mine; 
but  went  on  to  give  me  a  list  of  the  names  of  officers  and  men 
who  had  lost  their  lives  in  the  then  pending  Spanish- American 
War  and  the  names  of  their  surviving  sons ;  he  said  these  boys 
desired  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  their  fathers,  and  to  pre- 
fer them  was  about  the  only  poor  recognition  this  Government 
could  show  the  boys;  and  closed  by  submitting  to  me  this 
question:  "Now,  my  friend,  put  yourself  in  my  place  and 
yourself  answer  the  question,  What  would  you  do  under  all 
these  circumstances — prefer  and  appoint  the  sons  of  our  dead 
heroes,  or  an  outsider  like  your  young  friend?"  He  knew 
there  could  be  but  one  answer.  But  that  was  McKinley's 
way. 

By  appointment  I  called  on  him  one  morning  when  this 
war  was  coming  on.  There  was  trouble  for  him  in  our  Mis- 
souri camp,  but  his  real  friends  here  in  the  West  believed 


PRESIDENTS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  109 

in  tne  man  ana  earnestly  desired  his  renommation.  He  and 
I  were  to  talk  over  the  political  status  of  this  State  and  agree 
upon  some  plan  respecting  his  future.  But  when  I  was 
ushered  into  his  presence,  he  looked  so  worn  and  pale  and 
wan  that,  taking  in  his  condition  at  a  glance,  I  said:  "Major, 
you  are  a  sick  man,  made  so  by  the  situation  that  confronts 
your  high  office;  don't  say  or  think  anything  of  political  con- 
ditions in  the  West ;  I  go  home  tomorrow,  and  as  soon  as  I 
can  get  there,  some  of  your  friends  will  be  called  into  con- 
sultation and  your  interests  will  be  looked  after  as  they  should 
be;  we  will  arrange  that  matter  there."  McKinley,  without 
even  a  smile,  said:  "You  are  very  kind;  do  that  which  you 
think  best  and  I  shall  be  satisfied."  That  wa?  all.  But  the 
result  shows  that  his  interests  were  not  neglected. 

The  last  time  we  met,  I  called  in  company  with  Colonel 
R.  T.  Van  Horn,  and  a  long,  pleasant,  friendly  talk  followed, 
in  the  course  of  which  the  Colonel  told  an  appropriate  story, 
over  which  we  all  laughed  most  heartily.  That  the  point  of 
that  story  was  against  one  of  the  personal  and  political  friends 
of  the  President  did  not  trouble  him  for  a  moment. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVEI/T.  This  great  man  was  and  is  so 
constructed  mentally  and  physically  that  he  is  simply  impelled 
by  the  law  of  his  bein^f  to  say  and  do  things  every  hour  and 
minute  he  is  awake.  Nearly  always  right,  to  my  thinking, 
he  occasionally  said  and  did  things  that  should  have  been 
omitted ;  but  to  the  country  at  large  he  looms  up  like  the 
Colossus  he  is,  and  I  do  not  hope  to  see  another  man  in  that 
chair  who  can  or  will  do  as  much  for  the  good  of  all  the 
people  as  did  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

WILLIAM  HOWARD  TAFT.  Knowing  his  father  before 
him,  and  him  as  I  do,  nothing  he  has  said  or  done  up  to  this 
hour  has  either  surprised  or  displeased  me.  But  he  has  only 


110  RECOLLECTIONS 

been  in  office  a  few  months;  the  country,  people,  and  party 
expect  much  of  him,  and  I  do  not  think  either  will  be  dis- 
appointed. Time  alone  will  disclose  all  this.  He  starts  out 
well  and  is  almost  sure  to  make  good. 


V. 
A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET. 


JAMES  G.  ELAINE,  Maine.  If  there  be  an  American  over 
thirty  years  old  who  has  not  heard  and  read  many  good  things 
about  the  life  and  achievements  of  this  great  statesman,  then 
that  American  is  alone — everybody  else  knows.  As  a  member 
of  Congress,  as  U.  S.  senator,  as  twice  Secretary  of  State, 
as  a  worker,  thinker,  writer,  talker,  orator,  from  his  entrance 
into  public  life  in  the  troublous  days  of  the  Civil  War  down 
to  the  day  of  his  death  in  1893,  he  moulded  and  guided  public 
thought,  opinion,  and  action  by  sheer  force  of  his  tremendous 
personality  and  strong,  clear,  able  statesmanship,  as  no  other 
American  of  my  time. 

When  first  I  knew  him,  his  bright  light  was  largely  ob- 
scured by  the  lower  House  leader  in  the  person  of  the  great 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania.  For  gnarled  and  knotted 
old  Thad  I  had  a  profound  boyhood  respect.  Since  his  day  no 
leader  has  ever  been  able  to  lash  that  body  into  a  perfect 
frenzy  of  political  excitement,  nor  so  certainly  dominate  the 
lower  branch  of  the  Federal  Congress.  In  that  day,  now  far 
back,  I  used  to  go  with  Kellian  V.  Whaley,  an  old  friend  of. 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  m 

my  father,  to  a  famous  gambling-house  in  Washington.  There 
the  choicest  wines,  cigars,  and  lunches  were  always  served 
free  to  all  comers,  and  there  I  often  watched  these  two  old 
leviathans,  Stevens  and  Whaley,  at  some  game  of  chance 
till  midnight ;  then  they  invariably  quit  and  went  home.  Colo- 
nel R.  T.  Van  Horn,  who  was  then  a  member  of  that  Con- 
gress, told  me  that  old  Thad's  last  winning  one  night  was  a 
twenty-dollar  bill,  which  he  slipped  into  his  vest-pocket.  As 
he  was  going  into  the  House  next  morning  with  his  guest 
he  saw  an  old  charwoman  in  apparent  need,  and,  without  a 
word  or  glance,  gave  her  this  bill.  His  friend  asked:  "Do 
you  know  what  you  gave  this  woman?"  Old  Thad  said  he 
didn't;  and  was  then  reminded  of  his  winnings  at  poker  the 
night  before,  and  that  he  had  just  given  that  sum  away  to 
charity.  The  "old  commoner"  only  remarked:  "It  does  beat 
hell  how  'God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way  His  wonders  to  per- 
form.' "  I  always  mentally  resented  the  statement  in  "The 
Clansman"  that  old  Thad's  housekeeper  dominated  his  public 
and  private  career,  for,  in  my  judgment,  neither  God  nor 
man  nor  woman  ever  dominated  Thaddeus  Stevens  in  any 
way.  So,  in  his  day,  both  Elaine  and  Conkling  were  great, 
but  Thad  Stevens  was  greater. 

When  Elaine  became  Speaker  of  the  House,  on  March 
4,  1869,  the  deserved  promotion  wrought  a  wondrous,  yet  to 
me  natural,  change  in  his  official  couduct.  As  his  party  lead- 
er in  Congress  he  had  been  ever  alert,  watchful,  wary,  saga- 
cious, and  no  man  struck  quicker  or  more  powerful  blows 
than  he;  but  as  Speaker  he  was  cautious,  conservative,  fair, 
and  always  held  his  country  above  his  party.  I  know  of  no 
stronger  or  better  illustration  of  the  doctrine  that  place  and 
power  bring  conservatism. 

Those  who  have  not  read  and  studied  the  great  speech 


112 


RECOLLECTIONS 


of  Colonel  Ingersoll  in  nominating  Elaine  for  President  in 
1876,  or  the  writings  and  speeches  of  "the  Plumed  Knight," 
still  have  before  them  treats  of  the  highest  order,  for  no  man 
in  his  party  ever  had  more  fighting  friends  than  Elaine,  nor 
a  greater  number  of  earnest,  enthusiastic  supporters.  He  ae- 
served  to  be  and  should  have  been  President,  and  the  one 
great  regret  of  his  life,  as  well  as  my  own,  was  that  he  fell 
just  outside  the  breastworks;  but  with  his  face  to  the  enemy. 

When,  in  1876,  his  State  sent  him  to  the  U.  S.  Senate, 
in  public  life  Elaine  again  met  his  personal  enemy,  the  great 
Conkling,  of  New  York.  The  strained  yet  grave  courtesy 
between  these  two  peerless  leaders  was  once  described  to  me 
l>y  Senator  James  T.  Farley,  of  California.  When  a  young 
man,  this  "Jim"  Farley  was  a  deputy  sheriff  in  Daviess  County, 
Missouri,  at  Gallatin,  but  he  went  off  to  the  Pacific  coast  in  an 
early  day  in  search  of  fortune  and  fame ;  through  a  faro  bank, 
poker,  and  the  law  he  finally  got  both,  and  his  party  then  sent 
him  to  the  U.  S.  Senate.  En  route  to  and  from  the  national 
capital,  he  often  stopped  at  his  old  home  in  Gallatin  and  always 
made  his  headquarters  at  my  office.  Soon  after  his  entrance 
into  the  Senate,  Farley  and  I  were  sitting  back  in  the  lobby, 
talking  "old  Missouri,"  while  Elaine  and  Senator  Allen  G. 
Thurman,  of  Ohio,  were  having  a  hot  tilt  in  the  Senate  over 
some  political  matter.  Like  some  of  our  latter-day  senators, 
no  one  could  sit  on  Elaine,  or  his  party,  with  impunity,  and 
his  voice  and  lungs  and  thoughts  were  always  in  readiness. 
Thurman  was  a  greatly  beloved  leader,  with  whom  few  cared 
to  contest  any  question,  but  on  that  day  he  was  not  at  his  best, 
and  knew  it.  The  little  row  was  over  and  the  Senate  ad- 
journed. "The  old  Roman"  was  not  satisfied,  and  asked: 
"Say,  boys,  how  did  I  acquit  myself?"  Farley  and  his  other 
associates  said  he  had  made  a  good  fight ;  but  Thurman  shook 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  113 

his  strong  gray  locks  and  said:  "Glad  to  hear  it,  boys;  you 
see,  I  don't  feel  first  class  today  and  rather  doubted  myself; 
but  just  let  that  damned  upstart  tackle  me  some  day  when 
I  'm  sober,  and  I  won't  leave  a  grease-spot  of  him." 

While  Elaine  was  in  the  Senate,  we  met  one  day  on 
Pennsylvania  Avenue.  In  his  quick  way  he  asked :  "Are  you 
personally  acquainted  with  A.  and  B.  of  your  Congressional 
district?"  I  answered  in  the  affirmative,  and  his  next  question 
was:  "Which  of  these  will  make  the  better  postmaster  at 

•  ?"     I  answered,  "A."     He  said,  "I  thank  you,  sir,"  and 

passed  on.  But  the  next  day  A.  was  appointed  and  confirmed 
as  postmaster  at  that  town  and  a  political  fight  that  had  there 
raged  for  over  a  year  was  settled. 

In  the  early  fall  of  1881,  the  next  day  after  the  death  of 
President  Garfield,  a  letter  came  into  my  possession,  written 
only  four  days  prior  to  his  assassination,  by  one  stalwart  to 
another,  which  to  my  mind  unquestionably  foreshadowed  "the 
impending"  crime  of  Guiteau.  This  letter  was  of  such  grave 
national  concern  that  I  at  once  carried  it  to  Washington  and 
laid  it  before  Mr.  Blaine,  who  was  then  Secretary  of  State 
and  knew  both  parties.  We  sat  together  alone  in  his  private 
office  while  he  read  it,  and  I  can  never  forget  the  shudder 
which  shook  the  man  as  he  exclaimed:  "My  God!  can  it  be 
possible  that  J.  knew  this  awful  deed  was  to  be  done?"  Then 
apparently  recollecting  his  own  status  in  the  party,  and  com- 
prehending on  the  instant  the  effect  which  such  a  letter  might 
have  upon  his  future,  Blaine  asked :  "Who  else  in  the  party 
at  Washington  knows  of  the  contents  of  this  letter?"  I  an- 
swered: "No  one,  sir;  I  brought  it  to  you  as  the  close  personal 
and  political  friend  and  premier  of  Garfield."  Then  he  said: 
"We  must  not  let  the  sun  go  down  tonight  leaving  me  the 
sole  recipient  of  this  information  at  the  capital;  do  you  know- 


114  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  have  you  confidence  in  Justice  Miller,  of  the  Supreme 
Court?"  Upon  my  saying  that  I  had  known  and  confided  in 
the  Justice  for  years,  two  sworn  copies  of  this  letter  were 
there  made ;  Elaine  at  once  sent  a  messenger  with  these  copies 
to  Justice  Miller  and  another,  and  promised  to  lay  the  matter 
before  the  secret  service  officers  that  night.  This  was  the  only 
time  I  ever  saw  Mr.  Blaine  when  he  seemed  the  least  nervous, 
but  that  letter  so  wrought  upon  his  feelings  that  he  begged 
me  not  to  disclose  to  anyone  there  the  object  of  my  visit  to 
the  capital,  and  several  times  repeated  that,  in  his  judgment, 
my  life  would  not  be  safe  at  Washington  if  the  opposition 
either  knew  I  carried  such  a  letter  on  my  person  or  knew  its 
contents.  With  all  his  solicitude  and  interest,  neither  he  nor 
anyone  else  in  authority,  at  any  time  thereafter,  ever  expressed 
a  word  to  me  upon  the  subject  matter  of  this  letter.  The  in- 
cident then  closed,  as  far  as  I  ever  knew.  Maybe  it  is  as  well, 
for  the  parties  who  knew  the  facts  are  all  gone  now,  excepting 
only  myself. 

When  Blaine  was  defeated  for  the  Presidency  in  1884, 
my  personal  and  political  grief  was  beyond  words,  and  I  still 
regret  that  defeat.  My  affection  for  and  admiration  of  the 
man  for  his  many  great  qualities  of  head  and  heart,  not  less 
than  his  acquirements  as  an  ardent,  sagacious  statesman  and 
leader  of  his  party,  were  well-nigh  boundless.  He  had  the 
happy  faculty,  possessed  by  no  other  of  his  day  so  far  as  I 
knew,  of  putting  his  arms  about  his  friend  and  raising  that 
friend  up,  however  lowly  the  station,  to  his  own  lofty  height. 

JOHN  S.  CARLISLE,  Clarksburg,  West  Virginia.  From 
the  time  I  was  a  small  boy  until  his  death  at  his  old  home 
some  years  ago,  no  man  to  whom  I  ever  listened  so  carried 
me  away  a  willing  captive,  or  so  charmed  me  by  the  music 
of  his  voice,  and  easy,  eloquent,  patriotic  flow  of  language 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  115 

in  public  speech,  as  did  Carlisle.  He  was  a  native  of  Virginia, 
had  filled  every  office  up  to  member  of  Congress,  and  when  the 
war  came  on,  seemed  to  me  to  be  aflame,  inside  and  out,  with 
patriotic  zeal  for  the  Union.  He  was  the  foremost  man  in  the 
first  meeting  held  by  those  who  favored  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
and  the  Government  of  the  Fathers  at  the  now  city  of  Clarks- 
burg, on  April  22,  1861.  There  his  strong,  earnest  appeal 
to  his  old  neighbors  was  most  effective,  and  for  over  two 
hours  this  educated,  talented  man  not  only  held  his  audience, 
but  put  red  blood  and  patriotic  iron  into  the  systems  of  many 
who  were  then  wavering  between  secession  and  the  Union. 
So  when  the  restored  government  of  Virginia  became  estab- 
lished that  year,  John  S.  Carlisle  was  sent  to  the  U.  S.  Senate. 
Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  Senate  was  then  composed 
of  stalwart  men,  statesmen  who  both  dared  and  did  things 
for  country  and  party,  yet  among  them  all  he  stood  so  high 
that  he  seemed  at  one  time  to  be  the  almost  unanimous  choice 
of  the  people  for  the  Vice-Presidency  on  the  party  ticket  with 
Lincoln  in  1864.  In  an  apparently  evil  hour,  however,  he 
wildly  threw  all  these  chances  away,  by  there  opposing  the  bill 
creating  the  State  of  West  Virginia.  After  his  speech  on  that 
issue,  which  at  the  time  was  momentous  to  both  the  admin- 
istration and  the  party  which  sent  him  to  the  Senate,  he  was 
a  sort  of  political  free  lance  for  a  time,  and  adhered  first  to 
one  and  then  to  the  other  of  the  two  political  parties;  but  he 
was  always  great.  While  at  military  headquarters  in  Clarks- 
burg in  1863-4,  we  occupied  the  Turner  mansion,  for  its  owner 
was  an  officer  in  the  Confederate  Army,  and  Carlisle's  home 
was  in  plain  view  and  in  the  adjoining  block.  There  I  often 
met  the  Senator  and  knew  every  member  of  his  family  as  well. 
To  me  he  never  had  a  fault,  but  Was  simply  weak  in  his  party 
affiliations.  Like  many  a  Virginia  gentleman  of  his  day,  he 


116  RECOLLECTIONS 

never  knew  what  a  dollar  represented,  neither  thought  nor 
cared  about  his  personal  finances,  and  to  him  his  party  ties 
were  not  of  the  kind  that  always  bind. 

In  1876  I  had  been  through  Canada,  New  England,  and 
eastern  cities  and  en  route  home  stopped  off  for  some  days 
at  my  old  home,  Fairmont.  While  there  Carlisle  and  I  talked 
to  the  assembled  people,  or,  to  be  accurate,  I  talked  and  he 
made  a  speech,  for  the  campaign  was  on  and  politics  seemed 
running  at  fever  heat.  I  had  not  heard  him  since  the  war,  and 
thought  then  that  my  admiration  of  the  many  good  things  he 
always  said  was  attributable  to  mere  boyish  fancy.  But,  to  my 
surprise,  Carlisle  had  not  spoken  five  minutes  when  I  was  all 
attention,  absorbed,  and  literally  hanging  on  his  every  word, 
gesture,  tone.  The  truth  is,  that  the  effect  of  his  oratory  then 
was  the  same  in  all  things  as  it  had  been  when  I  was  a  boy. 
He  not  only  entranced  me,  but  everybody  else.  When  he 
took  up  and  quoted  from  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
Washington's  farewell  address,  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  kept  us  all  in  the  clouds  at  his  sweet  will, 
for  how  long  I  never  knew,  it  occurred  to  me  that  no 
other  man  ever  did  or  could  reach  the  lofty  height  of 
patriotic  eloquence  then  attained  by  John  S.  Carlisle.  Down 
on  the  street  corner,  after  the  speaking  was  over,  I  met  my 
Democratic  cousin,  Mrs.  Maria  Haymond,  who  at  the  age  of 
eighty -two  is  still  quicker  and  smarter  than  chained  light- 
ning, and  in  the  talk  told  her  of  Carlisle's  great  speech. 
With  that  characteristic  suspicion  of  a  smile  in  her  face, 
Mrs.  Haymond  remarked:  "And  so  John  is  now  making 
speeches  for  the  Republican  party?  I  am  glad  he  is  tem- 
porarily anchored,  for  he  talks  well ;  but,  Henry,  you  are  vis- 
iting Fairmont,  and  as  our  guest  we  can't  ask  you  to  do  the 
actual  work  yourself ;  yet  let  me  suggest  that  you  go  and  tell  the 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  117 

managers  of  your  party  to  take  John  down  to  the  Mononga- 
hela  River  and  drown  him  before  sundown  and  while  he  is 
still  in  the  faith  ;  for  the  good  Lord  only  knows  what  party  he 
may  be  in  by  tomorrow  morning." 

CASSTUS  MARCELUJS  CLAY,  Kentucky.  In  the  National 
Forestry  Congress  held  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  in  April,  1882, 
Clay  represented  his  State,  and,  as  a  volunteer,  I  represented 
mine;  we  had  connecting  rooms  and  for  ten  days  were  much 
together.  There  we  met  Charles  Foster,  Edward  F.  Noyes, 
Ward  Lamon,  Commissioner  of  Agriculture  Loring,  and  many 
others  of  national  renown. 

In  our  many  long  talks  my  friend  always  referred  to  his 
more  distinguished  kinsman  as  "Henry  Clay,"  and  to  himself 
as  "Clay."  In  his  own  esteem  he  was  "the  McNab  of  the 
McNabs."  His  ample  white  hair  and  full  whiskers,  piercing 
eyes,  earnest  talk,  and  rapid  gestures,  marked  his  as  a  learned, 
rare,  unique,  and  interesting  character.  He  was  a  captain  in 
our  war  with  Mexico  and  was  for  a  short  time  a  major-general 
in  the  Civil  War ;  but  the  public  service  about  which  he  loved 
most  to  talk,  and  I  to  listen,  was  his  residence  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, in  Russia,  where  he  was  our  minister  for  about  eight 
years,  between  1861  to  1869.  His  description  of  the  people 
of  that  country,  their  attributes,  habits,  etc.,  were  simply  fasci- 
nating. To  him  Russia  was  the  greatest  and  best  governed 
nation  on  earth.  I  had  read  and  heard  much  of  Siberia,  the 
nihilists,  etc.,  but  when  these  were  reverted  to,  he  only  An- 
swered that  the  strict  enforcement  of  their  penal  laws  was  the 
only  means  of  controlling  that  country,  and  justified  the  no- 
bility. He  once  laid  down  this  proposition:  "Russia  is  the 
only  country  that  has,  and  for  century  after  century  pursues, 
a  fixed  and  inflexible  governmental  policy ;  for  generations  she 
has  had  her  eye  on  Manchuria  and  will  some  day,  God  only 


118  RECOLLECTIONS 

knows  when,  own,  control,  and  govern  all  that  territory."  In 
the  late  Russo-Japanese  War  his  theory  and  pet  nation  both 
received  a  black  eye  at  the  hands  of  the  alert  Japs,  and  Japan 
may  possibly  yet  fully  control  there.  But  I  am  not  prognos- 
ticating; that  country  is  a  long  way  off;  no  kindred  of  mine 
engaged  in  that  war,  nor  are  they  interested  in  any  way  in  the 
row,  and  anyway,  the  weather  it  too  hot  now  to  speculate 
on  how  or  by  whom  Manchuria  may  be  controlled  in  the  years 
that  yet  shall  be. 

This  "sage  of  Whitehall"  graduated  from  Yale  in  1832, 
and  was  later  a  lawyer,  newspaper  editor,  soldier,  diplomat, 
statesman;  and  withal  was  a  close  and  great  reader  of  good 
books,  and  a  still  better  speaker,  talker,  and  thinker.  A  volume 
of  iiis  public  addresses  was  printed  in  1848,  and  since  the 
war  he  wrote  and  published  a  most  interesting  book  of  his 
memories. 

After  sundry  other  experiences  in  that  line,  in  1894,  he 
married  his  ward.  He  was  then  eighty-four,  she  fifteen,  and 
it  was  not  long  until  the  divorce  courts  freed  the  unequal 
couple,  as  everybody  else  anticipated.  The  press  then  had  much 
to  say  of  this  marriage  and  divorce,  but  when  last  we  met, 
the  old  man  told  me  that  he  gave  Dora  his  name  to  save  her 
from  her  fool  friends,  and  I  believed  him. 

In  politics,  he  was  originally  a  Whig,  then  became  a 
Republican  and  later  a  Democrat.  But  he  was  an  abolitionist 
per  se,  and  once  edited  a  paper  devoted  to  the  freedom  of  the 
slaves,  first  at  Lexington,  Kentucky,  until  his  office  there  was 
wrecked,  then  for  a  time  at  Cincinnati ;  yet,  for  all  his  zeal  and 
greatness,  his  political  allies  viewed  him  as  a  disturbing  element. 

While  he  would  fight  a  buzz-saw  or  a  regiment  in  any 
conceivable  way,  yet  in  both  offensive  and  defensive  warfare 
his  favorite  weapon  was  the  knife;  and  his  demonstration 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  119 

of  just  how  to  hold  it,  thrust,  cut,  twist,  etc.,  was  both  in- 
teresting and  instructive  to  the  knife-fighter.  What  with 
his  vast  knowledge,  wise  head,  and  understanding  heart,  in- 
dependent fortune,  beautiful  home,  and  unlimited  capacity  for 
entertaining  his  friends,  his  days  might  have  been  passed  in 
peace  and  quiet ;  but  his  wild  temper  unfitted  him  for  the  high 
duties  of  true  citizenship,  as  well  as  leadership,  and  from  early 
manhood  down  to  his  death  only  a  few  years  ago,  his  life  was 
distorted  into  constant  conflicts  and  without  one  American 
precedent,  presents  a  series  of  feuds,  fights,  duels ;  and,  in  the 
language  of  his  friend,  he  was  "a  stormy  petrel  in  a  stormy 
time." 

SHERRARD  CLEMENS,  Wheeling,  West  Virginia.  This 
learned,  clear-headed  lawyer,  wise  statesman  and  genuine  gen- 
tleman, born  in  my  native  State,  was  the  lifelong  friend  of 
my  lather,  and  after  filling  other  Federal  and  State  offices, 
thrice  represented  our  old  district  in  the  U.  S.  Congress,  end- 
ing in  1 86 1.  He  was  the  first  public  man  in  our  country  to 
keep  on  hand  an  alphabetical  classified  list  of  his  constituents, 
so  as  to  mail  to  each,  according  to  his  political  influence,  the 
current  public  literature  of  the  day.  While  in  Congress,  in 
1859,  he  fought  a  duel  with  O.  Jennings  Wise,  of  Richmond, 
Virginia,  was  thereby  lamed  for  life  in  the  hip,  retired  from 
public  gaze  at  the  commencement  of  our  Civil  War,  and  finally 
died  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  not  long  ago.  So  far  as  recalled, 
his  duel  with  Wise  was  among  the  very  last  of  such  encounters 
in  high  life,  and  since  then  such  wrangles  among  gentlemen 
are  no  longer  settled  "on  the  field  of  honor." 

Under  the  direction  of  the  National  Committee,  Clemens 
campaigned  this  State  for  the  Democratic  ticket  in  1874  and 
again  in  1876.  As  a  public  speaker  he  was  able,  pleasing, 
pungent,  and  forceful,  and  it  is  with  pleasure  I  now  recall  the 


120  RECOLLECTIONS 

fact  that  when  he  came  to  Gallatin  in  these  campaigns,  we  en- 
tertained him  at  our  home  and  I  introduced  him  to  his  audi- 
ences. Although  a  staunch  Republican,  yet  neither  collar  nor 
strings  encumbered  me,  nor  did  party  politics  separate  my 
friends  and  myself. 

In  1874  close  work  and  practice  on  the  circuit  were  wear- 
ing on  me,  and  I  then  had  a  long  talk  with  Clemens  as  to  the 
advisability  of  quitting  the  country  and  opening  a  law  office 
in  some  large  city.  He  listened  kindly  and  patiently,  and  then, 
in  his  slow  and  deliberate  way,  said :  "After  campaigning  all 
through  your  bailiwick,  I  know  your  practice  and  people  and 
for  more  than  a  generation  have  known  your  family.  You 
know  it  is  said  that  'God  made  the  country  and  man  made 
the  town,'  and  that  an  old  chap  once  gave  a  young  fellow  con- 
templating matrimony  the  terse  advise,  'Don't.'  I  do  not  ad- 
vise you,  but  my  judgment  is  that  you  would  better  remain  at 
Gallatin.  In  a  large  city  you  are  liable  to  lose  your  identity 
and  simply  become  one  of  the  leaves  in  a  vast  forest." 

THOMAS  THEODORE  CRITTENDEN,  of  Kansas  City,  Mis- 
souri, was  born  in  Kentucky,  in  1832,  removed  to  Missouri 
in  1856,  and  died  in  this  city  on  May  29,  1909.  In  the  Civil 
War  he  was  the  lieutenant-colonel  of  the  Missouri  cavalry 
regiment  commanded  by  Colonel  John  F.  Philips;  became  the 
attorney-general  of  his  adopted  State  in  1864;  represented  the 
Warrensburg  district  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
for  four  years,  ending  in  1879;  was  f°r  f°ur  years  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Missouri;  consul-general  to  the  city  of  Mexico  for 
four  years,  ending  in  1897;  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  had 
long  held  the  judicial  position  of  Referee  in  Bankruptcy  under 
the  appointment  of  his  lifelong  friend,  Judge  Philips. 

He  read  law  under  his  distinguished  uncle,  John  J.  Crit- 
tenden,  at  Frankfort,  in  his  native  State;  was  there  admitted 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  121 

to  the  bar  and  married  in  1855 ;  was  the  head  of  the  great  law 
firm  of  Crittenden  &  Cockrell  until  the  latter  was  sent  to  the 
United  States  Senate  in  1875,  and  was  for  over  four  years,  end- 
ing in  1889,  a  member  of  the  law  firm  of  Crittenden,  McDougal 
&  Stiles,  at  Kansas  City,  composed  of  himself,  the  writer  here- 
of, and  Judge  Edward  H.  Stiles. 

On  November  13,  1900,  the  golden  wedding  of  my  good 
friend  was  celebrated,  and  in  honor  of  Governor  and  Mrs. 
Crittenden  I  attended  that  function  in  full  evening  dress.  In 
like  "glad  clothes"  I  always  went  to  bar  banquets  here  at 
home;  and  in  other  places  East,  having  the  time,  I  had  so 
attended  parties  and  balls,  and  there  have  been  heard  to  raise 
my  voice  in  song,  and  even  dance  a  few  measures  with  the 
belles ;  but  never  before  at  home.  My  profession  or  inclination 
had  here  driven  me  into  the  habits  of  a  sort  of  studious  animal ; 
work  and  books  were  preferred  to  the  pleasures  of  life;  social 
matters  did  not  interest  me,  and  some  way  I  always  had  pre- 
vious engagements,  or  other  excuse  equally  bad ;  but  that  time 
the  rule  was  suspended,  and,  decked  out  in  the  garb  of  a  gen- 
tleman of  leisure,  I  not  only  went,  but  actually  enjoyed  it. 
After  dainty  refreshments  were  served,  I  called  the  assembled 
multitude  to  order  and,  without  a  word  of  previous  warning, 
introduced  our  one  "old  man  eloquent,"  in  these  words: 
"Among  the  many  guests  who  by  their  presence  here  tonight 
honor  themselves  in  honoring  our  distinguished  host  and  host- 
ess, there  is  one — a  man  wise  of  head,  generous  of  heart, 
eloquent  of  tongue — who  has  perhaps  known  Governor  and 
Mrs.  Crittenden  longer  and  better  than  any  other  guest.  And 
I  am  sure  that  I  but  voice  the  sentiments  of  each  and  every 
person  now  under  this  hospitable  roof  in  saying  that  all  would 
be  delighted  to  hear  such  remarks  as  this  lifelong  friend  may 


122  RECOLLECTIONS 

see  fit  to  make  upon  this  auspicious  occasion.  I  refer  to,  now 
call  upon,  and  present  Judge  John  F.  Philips." 

As  soon  as  he  regained  his  breath,  Judge  Philips,  as  usual, 
responded  in  his  happy  and  beautiful  way,  and,  if  possible, 
added  to  his  fame  in  the  prettiest  speech  of  his  life. 

Full  of  years  and  honors,  the  Governor  was  called  to  his 
rest,  and  the  bar  of  this  city,  upon  the  call  of  his  old  war-time 
commander,  Judge  Philips,  here  met  at  the  U.  S.  Circuit  Court 
rooms  and  there  unanimously  adopted  and  spread  upon  the 
records  of  the  court  a  set  of  memorial  resolutions  prepared 
and  signed  by  myself,  Judge  Stiles,  and  Judge  Willard  P.  Hall, 
as  the  members  of  that  committee.  In  then  oresenting  that 
report,  on  July  10,  1909,  I  said: 

"May  it  please  your  Honor: 

"Commissioned  by  my  fellow-members  of  your  committee 
to  prepare  and  present  this  memorial  to  the  late  Governor 
Crittenden,  I  here  perform  that  sad  duty ;  and  now  move  that 
the  memorial  read  be  accepted,  filed,  and  adopteci,  and  later 
spread  at  length  upon  the  records  of  this  court. 

"In  thus  paying  my  last  tribute  of  respect  to  a  character 
both  rare  and  lofty,  I  may  be  permitted  to  lay  an  additional 
wreath  upon  the  newly  made  grave  of  this  kind-hearted  man, 
accomplished  gentleman,  ripe  scholar,  gallant  soldier,  faithful 
patriot,  and  venerable  lawyer. 

"As  the  personal  friend  of  Governor  Crittenden  for  more 
than  forty  years,  and  as  one  of  his  law  partners  for  a  part 
of  that  time,  I  knew  the  man  and  his  methods,  personally,  pro- 
fessionally, and  closely.  And  now  that  he  is  mustered  out  of 
life  and  no  longer  shares  in  our  trials  or  triumphs,  without 
reserve  or  qualification  this  may  be  said  of  him:  That  on 
account  of  his  intelligent  interest  in  and  absorbtion  with  public 
affairs,  his  work  and  standing  as  a  lawyer  have  been  under- 
estimated by  both  his  brethren  at  the  bar  and  the  public,  for 
he  was  strong,  able,  fearless  in  his  chosen  profession. 

"Yet  to  me,  the  crowning  glory  of  his  long  life  was  always 
found  in  the  virtue  of  that  splendid  courtesy  and  profound 
deference  which  he  characteristically  and  consistently  empha- 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  123 

sized  in  his  daily  contact  with  all  classes  of  his  fellows,  rich 
and  poor,  high  and  low,  alike. 

"Strikingly  handsome  of  form  and  face,  he  was  a  con- 
spicuous commander  among  soldiers;  loving  his  kind,  and  a 
man  of  rarest  mental  and  physical  courage,  he  never  turned 
his  back  on  friend  or  foe;  and  to  life's  close  was  everywhere 
recognized  as  a  prince  among  lawyers,  a  king  among  men  and 
women." 

Many  other  lawyer  friends  spoke  in  terms  of  highest 
praise  of  their  dead  friend,  among  them  Judges  Stiles,  Hall, 
Scarritt,  and  William  S.  Cowherd;  but  the  most  beautiful, 
touching,  and  tender  of  them  all  were  the  closing  words  of 
his  lifelong  friend,  associate  and  war  comrade,  Judge  Philips, 
who  in  part  said  of  their  past: 

"His  Mentor  and  exemplar  was  that  rugged  commoner, 
broad-minded  statesman,  great  lawyer,  and  sincere  patriot, 
John  J.  Crittenden,  in  whose  shadow  small  men  might  walk, 
under  whose  approving  smile  and  inspiring  example  Tom 
Crittenden  grew  into  a  splendid  manhood. 

"The  recollection  of  my  friend  recalls  to  me  the  poetry 
and  best  epic  of  my  life.  At  old  Center  College  we  walked 
together  over  the  campus,  where  the  diamonds  sparkled  in  the 
dew  and  the  birds  sang  and  wooed.  We  sat  around  the  same 
student-table,  where  we  toiled  over  our  algebra,  the  logarithms, 
trigonometry,  and  the  differential  calculus;  where  we  trans- 
lated Virgil,  Delphini,  Tacitus,  and  Cicero  de  Officiis;  Xeno- 
phon's  Anabasis,  Th'ucydides,  and  Demosthenes'  Orations; 
and  puzzled  our  brains  over  the  text-books  on  natural  and 
mental  philosophy,  logic,  and  the  intricacies  of  international 
law.  While  we  whetted  to  keen  edge  on  each  other  our 
witticisms,  there  was  no  occasion  for  putting  the  foil  on  the 
rapier  of  sarcasm,  as  we  never  interchanged  dangerous  thrusts. 
We  dedicated  poems,  such  as  they  were,  to  the  same  imaginary 
goddesses,  but  we  practiced  epistolary  rhetoric  on  our  own 
'angel  in  dimity.' 

"Almost  beneath  the  same  rainbow  we  hung  out  our  signs, 
as  attorneys  at  law.  Wrhen  the  darkening  clouds  of  the  im- 
pending civil  strife  began  to  thicken  over  the  Western  and 
Southern  borders,  we  closed  our  law  offices,  doffed  the  garb 
of  peace,  and  put  on  the  habiliments  of  grim  war.  Side  by 
side  we  marched  to  meet  the  foe;  and  in  the  deadly  charge 


124  RECOLLECTIONS 

our  hearts  beat  as  with  one  pulse.  When  the  shades  of  night 
fell  from  the  sky,  hushing  the  uproar,  we  pillowed  our  heads 
in  the  saddle  and  stretched  our  weary  limbs  on  the  earth,  side 
by  side,  beneath  our  blankets.  Together  we  arose  at  the  same 
alarm  from  the  sentry,  or  at  the  same  morning  reveille.  At 
the  same  army  chest  we  ate  our  rations,  laughed  and  jollied, 
and  never  reckoned  the  accounts. 

"He  had  little  taste  for  the  tedium  and  required  patience 
of  the  drill-ground,  but  what  a  splendid  soldier  he  was !  The 
only  order  he  cared  for  was,  'Forward  and  at  them !'  Then, 
casting  aside  all  prescribed  tactics  and  maneuvers,  he  went  in, 
leading  but  not  directing  the  charge,  prodigal  of  life,  reckoning 
little  of  the  danger;  while  every  company  guidon  told  where 
he  was  in  the  fray.  I  can  yet  see  the  fire  in  those  marvelous 
eyes,  and  his  face  white  with  the  rage  of  the  encounter,  as  he 
rode  up  to  salute  and  report. 

"From  all  these  associations  came  to  us  that  feeling  of 
attachment  and  confidence  which  through  all  the  years,  from 
boyhood  to  manhood  and  to  old  age,  lost  nothing  of  its  in- 
tensity, a  feeling  which  the  fellow-collegian  and  old  soldier  only 
can  fully  understand. 

"There  was  in  the  closing  scene  of  his  fruitful  life  a  co- 
incidence which,  to  my  eye  of  faith,  augured  for  him  a  bright 
resurrection  morn.  It  was  his  habit  to  arise  from  his  bed  with 
the  sun.  On  that  beautiful  May  morning,  just  as  the  streak- 
ings  of  the  rising  sun  began  to  gild  the  eastern  horizon,  his 
brave  heart  ceased  to  beat,  and,  in  the  rich  foliage  of  fame, 
the  last  act  of  the  drama  of  his  life  closed. 
'  'So  fades  the  summer  cloud  away, 

So  sinks  the  gale  when  storms  are  o'er; 
So  gently  shuts  the  eye  of  day, 
So  dies  a  wave  along  the  shore.'  " 

JEFFERSON  DAVIS,  Mississippi.  One  evening,  about  1874, 
I  was  en  route  from  Kansas  City  to  St.  Louis  on  what  is  now 
the  Wabash  Railroad,  and,  after  the  evening  meal  at  R.  &  I. 
Junction,  went  into  the  smoking  compartment  of  the  Pullman 
for  my  after-dinner  cigar.  There  sat  all  alone  an  elderly  gen- 
tleman with  close-cropped  whitish  hair  and  full  whiskers, 
smoking  in  silence.  No  one  else  was  there ;  I  lighted  my  cigar 
and  we  soon  fell  into  a  pleasant  and  interesting  conversation. 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  125 

From  his  accent  and  talk  I  soon  discovered  that  he  was 
a  Southern  gentleman  of  the  old  school  and  had  gone  with 
his  people  into  the  Confederacy,  while  he  in  turn  knew  I  had 
been  on  the  other  side.  The  subject  uppermost  in  the  mind 
of  each  turned  upon  the  Civil  War,  then  not  long  past,  and, 
without  the  faintest  trace  of  bitterness  or  regret  upon  the  part 
of  either,  much  of  this  was  again  gone  over.  The  intimate 
knowledge  shown  by  my  companion  of  the  history  and  achieve- 
ments of  the  statesmen,  soldiers,  and  publicists  of  recent  years 
was  limitless,  and,  with  a  skill,  ability,  and  intimacy  astonish- 
ing to  me,  he  discussed  them  all.  In  all  this  his  manner  was 
most  charming,  his  talk  instructive  as  well  as  entertaining; 
I  only  knew  that  he  was  one  of  the  best  educated,  cultivated, 
and  most  accomplished  talkers  I  had  ever  met,  and  never  once 
suspected  his  identity.  After  we  had  long  talked  and  smoned, 
a  gentleman  appeared  at  the  compartment  curtain  and,  address- 
ing my  traveling  friend,  said:  "Pardon  me,  Mr.  President, 
but  we  think  it  is  high  time  you  were  retiring."  With  a 
courteous,  gracious  smile  my  friend  replied :  "Excuse  me 
a  few  minutes  longer,  Colonel ;  I  am  having  an  interesting 
talk  with  this  young  man,  and  just  as  soon  as  we  find  a  stop- 
ping-place, I  will  join  you."  At  that  moment  I  first  realized 
that  for  four  hours  I  had  been  listening  to  and  talking  with 
the  famous  ex-President  of  the  Confederacy,  Jefferson  Davis. 

The  "stopping-place"  of  which  he  spoke  never  came,  but 
after  a  time  good-nights  were  exchanged  and  each  retired. 
The  next  morning,  at  the  old  Planters'  House  in  St.  Louis,  my 
old  friend  General  Beauregard  duly  presented  me  to  "Pres- 
ident Davis" ;  we  breakfasted  at  the  same  table ;  there  we  Had 
another  delightful  hour,  and  that  was  my  last  talk  with  the 
once  high-priest  of  the  lost  cause. 

ALEXANDER  MONROE  DOCKERY,  Gallatin,   Missouri,  was 


126  RECOLLECTIONS 

born,  reared,  and  educated  within  this  State,  the  only  child  of 
a  distinguished  Methodist  divine.  In  his  early  manhood  he 
practiced  his  profession,  as  a  physician  and  surgeon,  at  Linneus 
and  Chillicothe,  until  the  spring  of  1874,  when  he  removed  to 
his  present  location,  and  there  became  the  cashier  of  a  bank, 
of  which  Thomas  B.  Yates  was  the  president.  He  was  married 
to  Miss  Mary  E.  Bird,  of  Chillicothe,  in  1869;  was  elected 
and  served  as  Mayor  of  Gallatin  in  1880,  and  has  for  many 
years  past  been  one  of  the  most  prominent  and  active  Masons 
in  the  State. 

In  1882  he  was  first  elected  to  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  and  with  distinguished  ability  continued  to  serve  all 
the  people  in  the  Gallatin  district  in  that  office  for  sixteen, 
consecutive  years. 

In  his  first  race  for  Congress,  I  was  there  the  chairman 
of  the  Republican  Congressional  Committee.  The  political  fight 
was  hot  and  the  interest  great.  During  the  campaign  a  mem- 
ber of  my  committee  expressed  to  me  at  Gallatin,  for  dis- 
tribution throughout  the  district,  a  large  number  of  printed 
circulars  containing  an  infamous  attack  upon  Dockery,  which, 
of  course,  I  did  not  believe.  With  increasing  anger,  I  read 
this  attack  in  full.  Then  I  placed  one  copy  of  the  circular  in 
a  drawer  of  my  desk,  put  another  in  my  pocket,  and  de- 
liberately burned  up  all  other  copies.  With  tfie  copy  in  my 
pocket,  I  at  once  went  over  to  Dockery's  bank,  gave  the  copy 
to  Mr.  Yates,  who  was  the  chairman  of  the  Democratic  Com- 
gressional  Committee,  and  told  him  the  whole  story.  Then 
I  said :  "Mr.  Yates,  I  want  to  defeat  Dr.  Dockery  on  prin- 
ciple and  because  he  is  a  Democrat ;  but  while  I  am  at  the  head 
of  this  committee  no  candidate  of  the  opposition  shall  be  here 
defeated  on  a  false  issue."  W'eeks  afterward  Yates  told  me 
that  while  he  and  Dockery  were  driving  in  a  buggy  over  the 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  127 

prairie  from  Kingston  to  Hamilton,  after  both  had  spoken 
to  the  people  in  that  campaign,  he  gave  Dockery  the  copy  of 
that  attack  and  told  him  the  whole  story  as  I  had  given  it  to 
him;  that  without  a  word  Dockery  listened  to  all  he  said  and 
read  every  word  of  the  bitter  attack ;  but,  turning  to  him  after 
a  long  silence,  he  saw  the  tears  rolling  down  Dockery's  face ! 
To  me  Dockery  never  once  opened  his  lips  on  the  subject  from 
that  day  to  this.  But,  from  his  many  acts  of  kindness  to  me 
in  all  the  long  years  intervening  since  that  incident  closed,  I 
believe  Dockery  still  gratefully  bears  it  all  in  mind,  although 
in  absolute  silence.  He  was  never  given  to  lavish  entertain- 
ment, as  are  some  statesmen,  but  throughout  his  lengtny  con- 
gressional career,  I  was  often  professionally  at  the  Nation's 
capital,  and  noticed  that,  however  busy  with  public  duties, 
Dr.  Dockery  and  his  good  wife  never  failed  to  show  me  some 
special  attention  in  a  drive,  dinner,  theater  party,  or  the  like, 
and  sometimes  all  of  these. 

In  1900,  without  opposition,  his  party  nominated  him 
for  Governor  of  Missouri.  He  was  elected  and  for  four  years 
held  that  high  office.  In  all  the  public  positions  which  he  has 
filled  with  honor  to  himself  and  credit  to  the  people,  if  any 
official  was  ever  more  efficient,  or  did  more  close,  hard,  earnest^ 
intelligent  work  for  the  people  he  loved,  that  officer  I  never 
knew. 

Against  my  repeated  protest,  Governor  Dockery  first  ap- 
pointed me  as  one  of  the  managers  of  the  Colony  for  the  Feeble- 
Minded  arid  Epileptic,  at  Marshall,  I  attended  many  meetings 
of  that  Board  and  was  just  getting  warmed  up  in  the  work, 
when  the  Governor  called  me  up  over  the  long-distance  tele- 
phone one  day  and  blandly  advised  me  that  my  resignation 
would  be  accepted.  I  said  to  him :  "Thank  God  for  that !  you. 
shall  have  it  just  as  soon  as  I  can  dictate  it  to  my  stenog- 


128  RECOLLECTIONS 

rapher."  Then  he  said:  "Hold  on,  Mack,  I  want  to  promote 
you ;  I  am  going  to  appoint  you  as  a  member  of  the  Missouri 
World's  Fair  Commission."  But  I  answered :  "Now,  Doctor, 
for  Heaven's  sake  don't  do  that;  you  ought  to  appoint  some 
man  who  is  either  young  or  rich  or  ambitious ;  I  am  neither, 
and  don't  want  the  place."  In  his  politely  emphatic  way  he 
said:  "Well,  I  have  your  commission  made  out  now  and 
if  you  decline  to  serve,  the  responsibility  will  be  yours."  So, 
in  the  interest  of  both  city  and  the  Governor,  I  complied  with 
his  request,  and  served  on  the  Commission,  along  with  J.  O. 
Allison,  B.  H.  Bonfoey,  M.  T.  Davis,  N.  H.  Gentry,  W.  H. 
Marshall,  F.  J.  Moss,  L.  F.  Parker,  and  D.  P.  Stroup,  for  over 
a  year.  Among  our  many  other  duties,  we  attended  the  Pan- 
American  Exposition  at  Buffalo,  in  New  York;  selected  a  site 
for  the  Missouri  building  at  the  great  World's  Fair  in  St. 
Louis;  and  were  often  in  consultation  with  the  Government 
Commission,  headed  by  that  prince  among  organizers,  David 
R.  Francis.  My  health'  being  somewhat  impaired,  I  spent  the 
early  part  of  1902  in  Colorado,  Texas,  and  New  Mexico,  in 
recuperating.  While  down  in  the  latter  Territory,  another 
letter  came  to  me  from  the  Governor,  calling  me  home  for  the 
reason  that  he  wished  to  make  me  the  Republican  member  of 
the  Kansas  City  Board  of  Election  Commissioners.  So  I  came 
home.  I  had  a  short  talk  with  Governor  Dockery,  in  which  he 
said:  "I  have  no  demands  or  even  requests  to  make,  but  do 
suggest  that  you  will  take  the  time  to  accept  this  office  and 
see  to  it  that  Kansas  City  has  fair  and  honest  elections."  For 
over  three  years,  from  August,  1902,  I  served  the  State  in 
the  new  office  and  drew  the  salary  with  surprising  regularity. 
Aside  from  election  times,  when  the  responsibility  was  great, 
the  minority  member  of  that  board  has  but  little  to  look  after 
or  think  about  except  his  pay.  My  Democratic  associates 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  129 

there  were  my  former  law  partner,  Frank  P.  Sebree,  and  Ben 
F.  Paxton.  Better  men  are  not  found;  we  had  no  discords 
or  disputes,  and  the  people  reaped  -the  reward  of  fair  elections. 
However,  the  new  office  did  not  lessen  my  esteem  for  my 
former  associates,  and  I  then  wrote  and  explained  existing- 
conditions  to  the  Missouri  World's  Fair  Commission,  and  in 
closing  it  said : 

"While  I  am,  and  for  thirty  years  have  been,  personally 
fond  of  the  Governor  and  stand  ready  to  do  for  him  almost 
any  sort  of  favor  at  any  time,  yet  1  regretted,  and  always 
will  regret,  the  necessity  which  impelled  me  to  sever  my  official 
connection  with  the  Missouri  World's  Fair  Commission.  I 
have  lived  a  long  time,  and  in  many  relations  of  a  happy  yet 
busy  life  have  been  associated  with  many  kinds  and  classes 
of  men ;  yet  in  all  these  years  I  have  never  met  or  been  as- 
sociated with  nobler,  manlier  men,  a  more  pleasant,  generous, 
genial,  and  congenial  body  of  gentlemen,  than  my  late  as- 
sociates on  that  Commission.  And  wherever  your  several  lots 
may  be  cast  in  the  veiled  future,  whatsoever  may  be  in  store 
for  youi  selves  or  for  me  in  the  years  that  shall  be,  my  blessing 
and  my  benediction  shall  go  with  each  of  you  until  the  Master 
shall  call  me  to  that  bourne  whence  'no  traveler  returns.'  " 

While  on  the  Election  Board  named,  I  also  served  as  a 
member  of  the  Kansas  City  World's  Fair  Commission  and 
assisted  in  securing  the  appropriation  for  and  erecting  in  the 
Model  City  on  the  World's  Fair  ground  that  far-famed  build- 
ing known  as  the  Kansas  City  Casino.  The  other  members 
were  E.  T.  Allen,  F.  D.  Crabbs,  D.  J.  Dean,  W.  S.  Dickey, 
J.  H.  Hawthorne,  F.  M.  Howe,  Franklin  Hudson,  J.  C.  Mc- 
Coy, C.  J.  Schmeltzer,  E.  F.  Swinney,  A.  A.  Whipple,  and 
Robert  F.  Winter.  At  the  formal  dedication  of  the  Casino 
at  the  grounds  in  St.  Louis  in  the  early  summer  of  1904,  at 
the  request  of  the  Commission,  I  made  a  short  talk  and  said, 
among  other  things : 


130  RECOLLECTIONS 

"My  Friends: 

"A  story  heard  at  some  forgotten  time  and  place  along 
life's  highway  may  with  propriety  be  here  recalled : 

"A  famous  sculptor  had  completed  his  work — a  statue  of 
one  of  the  great  ones  of  earth,  designed  for  and  dedicated 
to  the  people. 

"A  vast  concourse  of  his  countrymen  were  present  and 
participated  in  the  ceremonies  at  the  formal  unveiling  of  his 
masterpiece. 

"Orators,  statesmen,  and  critics  had  spoken  words  of 
highest  commendation  and  warmest  praise  of  the  marvelous 
result  of  his  labors.  When  called  upon  for  his  response  to 
all  this,  the  gifted  artist  modestly,  yet  affectionately  and 
proudly,  placed  his  hand  upon  his  statue  and  simply  said: 
"This  is  my  speech.' 

"As  that  artist  by  his  rare  skill  and  genius  was  enabled 
to  and  did  create  from  a  crude  and  meaningless  block  of 
marble  a  human  form  and  face  so  perfect  that  it  was  at  once 
the  pride  of  as  well  as  an  honor  to  his  country,  so  within 
the  past  forty  years,  by  working  with  the  same  intelligence, 
energy,  and  perseverance  which  actuated  and  inspired  the 
sculptor,  have  the  men  of  Kansas  City  created  from  an  in- 
consequential and  straggling  hamlet  along  the  banks  of  the 
broad  Missouri  a  splendid  progressive  city,  with  a  present 
population  of  three  hundred  thousand  of  happy  and  pros- 
perous people. 

"  'Tell  it  not  in  Gath ;  publish  it  not  in  the  streets  of 
Askelon ;'  but  if  and  when  called  upon  to  prophesy  privately 
to  thy  friend,  then  say  thou  unto  him,  that  by  reason  of  its 
geographical  location,  its  environment,  its  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial advantages,  the  manifest  destiny  of  Kansas  City  is 
to  increase  in  greatness  as  long  as  rivers  flow  out  to  the  sea 
and  old  Ocean  lifts  his  waves  to  the  storm;  aye, 

'  'Till  the  sun  grows  cold 

And  the  stars  are  old, 
And  the  leaves  of  the  Judgment  Book  unfold.' 

"Formally  opening  wide  the  doors  of  this  Casino  and 
dedicating  it  to  public  use — cordially  inviting  the  world  to  be- 
come our  guest ;  tendering  the  freedom  of  both  cfty  and  build- 
ing to  all —  the  people  of  Kansas  City  desire  its  guests,  present 

prospective,  to  understand  and  appreciate  this  fact,  that 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  131 

while  proud  of  our  imperial  State  of  Missouri,  we  are  prouder 
still  of  the  growth,  development,  and  achievements  of  Kansas 
City,  and  have  faith  sublime  in  its  future;  yet,  as  the  baby  of 
the  household  is  always  dearest  to  the  heart  of  the  good 
mother,  so,  of  all  its  cherished  public  possessions,  Kansas  City 
is  today  proudest  of  this  beautiful  building.  It  is  the  latest 
as  well  as  the  daintiest  darling  of  all  of  the  manifold  bless- 
ings which  have  been  lavishly  showered  upon  our  people 
through  the  energy  and  sagacity  of  our  enterprising  business 
men,  as  well  as  of  those  coming  to  us  through  the  justice  and 
beneficence,  the  kindness  and  the  goodness  of  God  and  man. 
"Authorized  to  speak  and  now  speaking  for  the  people 
of  Kansas  City,  I  can  do  no  better  than  to  follow  the  well- 
known  Kansas  City  habit  of  doing  things  rather  than  saying 
them.  Hence  to  the  Governor  of  Missouri  and  to  the  several 
members  of  the  Missouri  World's  Fair  Commission  I  first 
return  the  grateful  thanks  of  the  people  of  Kansas  City  for 
their  just  and  generous  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  second 
city  of  our  State;  and  in  conclusion  point  to  that  strong,  grow- 
ing, young  metropolis  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kaw,  and,  with  all 
the  affectionate  yet  modest  pride  which  characterized  the  great 
artist,  simply  add — 'Kansas  City  is  my  speech.'  " 

Since  his  retirement  from  office  in  1905,  Governor  Dock- 
ery  has  persistently  refused  to  stand  as  a  candidate  for  any 
high  official  position,  though  often  urged  to  do  so  by  those 
who  best  know  and  appreciate  the  man.  He  is  still  a  powerful 
public  speaker,  clear  writer,  hard  worker;  and  when  not  en- 
gaged in  looking  after  Democratic  politics,  or  the  Methodist 
Church  or  Masonic  affairs,  is  as  busy  as  a  snake-doctor  in 
attending  to  the  lesser  matters  of  his  neighbors  and  friends 
at  Gallatin,  for  he  is  built  that  way  and  simply  cannot  remain 
idle. 

Among  the  many  close  personal  and  political  friends  of 
his  city,  none  stood  nearer  than  Thomas  J.  Grain,  who  was  laid 
to  rest  there  only  the  other  day.  When  Mrs.  Grain  died  in 
1905,  the  Governor  and  I  were  among  her  honorary  pall- 
bearers. At  the  urgent  solicitation  of  the  good  old  friend  who 


132  RECOLLECTIONS 

was  thus  left  to  struggle  on  his  last  few  days  alone,  I  then 
wrote,  and  published  in  the  local  papers  of  her  city,  this  little 
tribute : 

"Thirty-nine  years  ago  I  became  a  citizen  of  an  inland 
Missouri  town.  Remote  from  railroads,  it  was  then  a  quiet, 
peaceful  place,  yet  prosperous.  The  rare  force  and  character 
of  the  people  there  stamped  them  as  the  most  moral,  truth  ful, 
honest,  God-fearing,  and  human-loving  I  had  ever  known. 
The  population  has  several  times  doubled  since  that  far-away 
day;  costly  and  elegant  schools,  churches,  residences,  and 
business  blocks  have  replaced  those  then  familiar  to  me ;  but 
drifting  years  and  the  innumerable  changes  wrought  by  the 
resistless  hand  of  Time  have  brought  no  change  in  the  high 
class  and  character  of  the  citizenship  of  the  town.  For  years 
I  lived  among  them,  blessed  always  with  their  precept  and 
example.  Then  came  the  removal  to  a  wider,  busier  field; 
yet  the  hurry  of  the  busy,  bustling  city  has  never  for  a  day 
dimmed  my  high  appreciation  of  the  warm  affection  for  those 
with  whom  I  first  cast  my  lot  in  Missouri. 

"When  I  left  there,  two  decades  ago,  I  knew  everybody 
in  the  town  and  surrounding  country;  but  when  I  went  back 
on  last  Sunday,  I  recognized  on  the  streets  only  a  comparative 
few  of  my  many  familiars  of  the  old  days.  The  frosts  of 
years  had  touched  them,  as  well  as  their  old  friend;  they 
were  no  longer  young,  nor  was  I.  But  out  in  the  cemetery 
I  knew  everybody;  nearly  all  my  friends  of  the  long  ago  rest 
there  now.  A  name  upon  a  tomb  revived  memories  of  faces, 
forms,  scenes,  and  incidents  in  the  once  happy,  active,  useful 
life  of  many  and  many  a  beloved  friend  who  had  slumbered 
for  years  in  the  grave.  And  the  truth  of  the  adage,  'The 
dead  are  very  many,  the  living  few,'  appealed  to  me  as  never 
before. 

"Among  my  first  acquaintances  of  the  town  was  a  then 
newly  married  couple,  whose  simple,  unaffected  piety  and  love 
and  practice  of  the  right  attracted  me,  and  when,  three  years 
later,  I  took  my  bride  to  the  town,  the  hearts  and  the  home 
of  this  good  couple  were  open  to  us,  and  from  that  day  on, 
my  wife  and  I  were  blessed  with  their  friendship  and  en- 
couragement. A  happier  couple,  or  more  considerate  and 
congenial,  or  better  matched,  no  one  ever  saw.  They  thought 
and  acted  always  upon  the  same  lines,  were  genial  and  gentle, 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  133 

tender  and  true,  charitable  and  hospitable,  devoted  to  each 
other,  as  well  as  to  their  kindred  and  friends;  and  as  the 
quiet  meadow  brook,  ever  deepening  and  widening,  flows  on 
and  on  its  winding  way  to  the  sea  of  Time,  so  the  useful, 
unselfish  lives  of  this  noble  couple  flowed  on  and  on  in  the 
same  channel  and  way,  out  toward  the  great  ocean  of  Eternity. 

"In  His  infinite  wisdom,  the  beneficent  Giver  of  all  good 
may  have  made  a  better  husband  and  wife;  somewhere  in 
this  wide  world  may  have  lived  a  man  and  woman  who 
quietly  accomplished  more  real  good  for  neighbors  and  friends, 
and  were  at  once  a  greater  blessing,  a  sweeter  benediction,  to 
all  with  whom  they  came  in  contact ;  but  such  a  man  and  wife 
I  have  never  known. 

"It  is  no  reflection  upon  any  one  of  the  many  clear- 
headed and  kind-hearted  women  of  this  town  to  say  that  not 
one  of  them,  in  the  past  forty  years,  has  done  so  much  to 
raise  up  the  bowed-down,  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  up- 
lift the  poor,  needy,  and  suffering  of  that  community  as  did 
this  good  woman. 

"When  both  were  fairly  beyond  the  allotted  'three  score 
years  and  ten,'  resting  from  the  activities  of  their  earlier  life, 
but  still  doing  good,  the  decree  went  forth  that  'the  silver 
cord  be  loosed,'  and  the  one  was  taken,  the  other  left.  The 
death  of  one  brought  to  the  other  the  saddest  human  bereave- 
ment that  can  come  to  man. 

"In  common  with  hundreds  of  other  old  friends,  I  at- 
tended the  funeral  to  pay  my  last  tribute  of  respect  to  the 
memory  of  one  of  the  noblest  and  best  of  women,  and  to 
mingle  my  tears  of  earnest,  heart-felt  grief  with  those  of  the 
stricken  husband  and  sorrowing  friends.  With  tender,  loving 
hands  we  laid  away  in  the  cemetery  on  the  hill  the  cold,  dead, 
dumb  form  of  the  gentle  wife;  while  selfish  sorrow  for  our 
own  personal  loss  was  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  deepest  sym- 
pathy for  the  lonely  and  disconsolate  husband.  For  her,  all 
was  light ;  for  him,  all  darkness. 

"The  town  of  which  I  write  is  Gallatin ;  the  husband  and 
wife,  Mr,  and  Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Grain.  H.  C.  McD." 

JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS,  Atchison,  Kansas.  In  the  political 
upheaval  which  retired  Ingalls  from  the  U.  S.  Senate,  in  1891, 
after  eighteen  years  of  memorable  public  service  as  the  clear- 


134  RECOLLECTIONS 

est,  ablest  word-user  and  best  public  speaker  Kansas  ever 
sent  to  that  distinguished  body  of  American  statesmen,  I  was 
en  route  home  from  Colorado,  and  when  our  train  reached 
Topeka,  learned  that  the  Legislature  by  vote  on  that  day  had 
chosen  an  excellent  citizen  who  wore  long  whiskers  and  bore 
the  euphonious  name  of  Peffer  as  the  Populistic  successor  of 
Ingalls.  As  our  train  sped  eastward  over  their  wide  prairies 
everyone  seemed  to  know  that  the  tug  of  war  was  coming 
to  a  speedy  showdown,  every  coach  was  rilled  with  enthusiastic 
People's  Party  men,  and  my  sleeper  even  was  loaded  to  the 
guards  with  them,  long  before  the  capital  was  in  sight.  One 
expectant  Populist  politician  was  rushing  up  and  down  in  our 
Pullman ;  I  was  ostensibly  reading  a  book,  not  saying  a  word, 
sitting  there  chewing  the  cud,  and  incidentally  sizing  up  that 
crowd.  That  son  of  the  soil  at  last  called  out  in  a  loud  voice, 
"Is  there  a  Missourian  on  board?"  Without  looking  up  from 
the  book,  I  raised  my  right  hand.  With  two  bottles  of  beer 
held  by  the  necks  in  his  left  hand,  this  prohibitionist  asked  me, 
"Have  you  a  corkscrew?"  Still  silent,  with  eyes  glued  upon 
the  book,  I  produced  that  necessary  traveling  companion  of 
every  old-time  Southern  gentleman,  and  passed  it  to  him  amid 
the  wild  laughter  of  his  friends.  For  the  next  hour  or  so 
the  supply  of  this  Teutonic  beverage  seemed  inexhaustible, 
Peffer's  adherents  must  have  consumed  gallons  of  it,  and  that 
corkscrew  came  back  to  me  before  we  reached  their  destination 
as  bright  and  free  from  tinge  of  rust  as  if  it  had  parsed 
through  a  German  campaign.  While  they  were  in  our  car, 
I  spoke  but  once,  in  answer  to  repeated  invitations  to  join 
"them:  "No,  I  thank  you;  I  never  drink  beer;  my  tipple  is 
good  old  Bourbon  whisky."  When  our  train  finally  stopped 
•at  Topeka,  the  legislative  vote  had  just  been  taken,  the  Rock 
Island  platform  was  alive  with  wild-eyed,  hatless  lunatics, 
who  were  surging  back  and  forth  through  the  gusty  mid- 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  135 

winter  rain  and  crying  out:  "Ingalls  is  defeated!"  "The 
people  are  on  top!"  "Peffer  is  elected!"  "Down  with  cor- 
porations and  up  with  the  farmer !"  "Glory  to  God !"  and  the 
like.  At  that  sight  the  gods  might  well  have  joined  the 
heavens  in  weeping  rainy  tears,  as  well  as  the  wind  at  his 
daily  prayers  that  hour,  for  the  lost  reason  of  the  people — 
good,  but  gone  wrong.  A  majority  finally  came  back  into  the 
fold  all  right,  but  for  a  long  time  Kansas  politically  wandered 
in  outer  darkness. 

Along  in  the  early  '8os,  Senator  Ingalls  went  from  his 
home  up  to  Gallatin  to  consult  with  me  about  my  New  Or- 
leans interview,  then  just  printed  in  the  Kansas  City  Journal, 
upon  the  political  situation,  and  conditions  in  our  Southern 
States,  and  more  especially  upon  the  race  question.  After 
many  weeks  devoted  to  the  study  of  these  questions  while 
down  in  the  far  South,  I  had  expressed  my  personal  views 
upon  the  situation  with  such  vigor  and  clearness  that,  on  the 
alert  always  for  political  ammunition,  the  Senator  hoped  I 
might  give  him  some  pointers.  In  the  day  we  spent  together, 
I  gave  him  the  full  benefit  of  all  the  facts,  conclusions,  etc.,  in 
my  possession ;  but  cannot  forget  his  eagerness  and  earnestness 
for  light ;  nor  his  repeated  emphasis  of  this  proposition :  "The 
black  man  presents  today  the  great  unsolved  problem  in  world- 
wide politics."  Ingalls  is  gone  now,  but  he  was  right  upon 
this  question,  as  he  generally  was;  and  long  after  this  gen- 
eration has  passed  into  the  unknown,  the  race  proposition 
will  confront  the  people  and  will  still  be  an  unsolved  problem. 
Politicians,  statesmen,  publicists  may  wrangle  over  it  in  the 
hereafter,  but  the  solution,  is  a  long  way  off. 

During  the  Frank  James  murder  trial  at  Gallatin,  in  the 
summer  of  1883,  Ingalls  and  his  fellow-townsman,  Noble  L. 
Prentis,  the  clear  writer  and  thinker  whom  all  Kansans  loved 
and  honored,  spent  some  days  there  at  my  office.  Their  wise 


136  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  witty  stories  at  that  visit  would  alone  fill  a  volume.  This 
one  true  tale  "made  a  hit"  with  Ingalls,  and  occurred  at  Car- 
rollton,  Missouri,  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War:  The  South- 
ern Methodists  of  that  town  erected  a  brand-new  church  and 
were  careful  to  inscribe  on  its  historical  tablet  the  words,  '"M. 
E.  Church  (South)  of  Carrollton."  The  newly  made  freedmen 
of  the  vicinity,  with  that  religious  enthusiasm  which  always 
characterizes  their  race,  also  erected  a  new  church  there  and 
unconsciously  imitated  their  white  brethren  by  placing  a  flam- 
ing and  large  tablet  which  was  intended  to  designate  their 
place  of  worship ;  but  in  their  zeal  the  colored  artist  unhappily 
omitted  the  parentheses  around  the  word  "North,"  and  when 
that  historical  tablet  was  erected  it  bore  this  legend :  "African 
M.  E.  Church  North  of  Christ" ! 

In  the  school  geographies  of,  say,  sixty  years  back,  all  that 
wide  sweep  of  country  now  included  in  western  Kansas  and 
eastern  Colorado  was  dotted  and  marked  "The  Great  American 
Desert."  Then  it  was  the  home  and  haunt  of  the  Indian  and 
buffalo.  Indeed,  in  going  through  that  very  country  over  the 
Sante  Fe  Railroad  soon  after  its  completion,  in  company  with 
a  Mexican  War  veteran,  he  pointed  out  to  me  the  places  where, 
on  their  westward  march  to  the  Mexican  War,  they  saw  trees 
and  grasses  in  1846  for  the  last  and  first  times ;  their  last  vege- 
tation was  then  seen  at  Cow  Creek,  where  Hutchinson,  Kan- 
sas, now  stands,  and  their  next  gladsome  sight  of  it  was  across 
the  Raton  Pass  and  about  Willow  Springs  in  New  Mexico; 
while  the  last  Indian  massacre  in  which  I  took  any  part,  and 
the  last  herd  of  wild  buffalo  I  ever  saw,  was  out  about  Lakin, 
Kansas,  in  1874.  At  that  day  "the  wise  men  of  the  East" 
firmly  believed  western  Kansas  semi-arid  and  adapted  only 
for  buffalo  pasturage  and  grazing-ground  for  the  long-horned 
cattle  of  the  plains.  Judicious  advertising  and  printers'  ink 
may  in  a  measure  account  for  the  wondrous  transformation: 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  137 

for  the  farms,  school-houses,  churches,  telephones,  and  motor 
cars  now  seen  there  on  every  hand;  but  within  my  day  in 
the  West  that  once  howling  wilderness  has  changed  to  one  of 
the  most  fertile  and  populous  portions  of  our  country.  Men 
and  women — strong,  sturdy,  fearless,  Western  pioneers — have 
made  Kansas  what  it  is  today,  filled  it  with  prosperous,  wide- 
awake, happy,  and  contented  people,  and  towards  making  it 
free  and  great  and  rich  no  man  within  its  borders  did  more 
than  this  same  John  James  Ingalls. 

The  writings  and  speeches  of  Ingalls  have  been  known  to 
the  studious  for  years.  Whether  his  pen  pictures  were  printed 
in  books,  magazines,  or  newspapers,  his  words  of  sense  and 
sentiment  were  recognized  at  a  glance,  while  his  scholarly, 
polished,  snappy  epigrams  will  be  quoted  long  after  his  fame 
as  a  Kansas  senator  has  faded  from  the  memory  of  men.  Of 
all  these,  the  emanation  from  his  pen  most  widely  known  is 
his  sonnet  on  "Opportunity."  When  his  old  friend  and  mine, 
Colonel  James  N.  Burnes,  of  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  passed 
away  in  1889,  memorial  addresses  were  not  only  delivered  in 
the  lower  House  of  Congress,  of  which  Burnes  was  then  a 
member,  but  also  in  the  Senate.  Before  the  latter,  Senator 
Ingalls  delivered  an  address  of  rare  power  and  pathos.  The 
press  severely  criticised  this  effort  at  the  time  and  claimed  that 
he  had  plagiarized  the  dissertation  of  Massillon  on  "Immor- 
tality." While  these  two  great  minds  might  have  run  in  the 
same  channel,  yet  I  could  not  believe  that  the  Senator  had 
taken  his  speech  from  Massillon,  for  he  was  alone  always 
equal  to  any  emergency.  So,  side  by  side,  the  two  efforts 
were  placed  and  then  carefully  studied  for  hours,  and  my  con- 
clusion then  was  that  if  Ingalls  had  unconsciously  followed 
this  precedent,  then  he  was  still  entitled  to  greatest  credit,  for 
the  reason  that  no  other  man  could  have  taken  up  Massillon 


138  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  made  the  Burnes  memorial  so  beautiful  and  good  as  had 
Senator  Ingalls. 

James  H.  Lane  went  to  Kansas  Territory  as  an  Indiana 
Democrat  with  the  evident  intent  to  represent  the  national 
policies  of  President  Pierce  and  oppose  the  Free  State  policies 
of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Societies  of  New  England.    On  June  27, 
1855,  he  was  the  chairman  of  the  Lawrence  Democratic  Con- 
vention and  is  said  to  have  written  its  resolutions.    Their  Ter- 
ritorial "Declaration  of  Independence"  was  an  affirmance  of 
their  ability  to  manage  their  own  affairs ;  they  then  requested  all 
others  to  let  Kansas  alone,  and  opposed  all  "illegal  voting  from 
any  quarter."    There  had  been  some  friction  between  the  anti- 
and  pro-slavery  parties  prior  to  this  date,  but  no  open  con- 
flict; and  all  the  border  war  between  the  Free  State  men,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  Pro-slavery  Missourians,  on  the  other, 
occurred  after  this  Convention.    From  the  fact  that  Aid  Com- 
panies had  been  sending  to  that  Territory  men,   arms,  and 
money  to  there  make  a  free  State,  and  the  well-known  and 
prominent  part  theretofore  taken  by  their  chairman,  as  the  late 
Democratic  Lieutenant-Governor  and  congressman  from  In- 
diana, it  was  assumed  that  the  resolutions  adopted  contem- 
plated a  direct  .slap  in  the  face  to  New  England  men  and 
methods  and  were  not  intended  to  apply  to  Missourians.     But 
with  the  keen  foresight  of  an  experienced  and  adroit  politician, 
Lane  very  soon  saw  the  trend  of  public  sentiment,  quickly 
changed  front,  early  espoused  the  cause  and  easily  became 
the  leader  of  the  Free  State  forces ;  he  stood  on  the  picket-line 
shouting,  "Free  homes  for  free  men !"  louder  and  stronger  than 
his  fellows,  and  the  proverbial  zeal  of  the  apostate  v*as  never 
better  illustrated.     When   Kansas   became  a   State   in    1861, 
Lane  was  a  strong  Republican  and  then  was  made  one  of  its 
first  U.  S.  senators,  for  his  political  work  was  unceasing  and 
his  ambition  boundless.    Listening  to  his  somewhat  florid,  but 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  139 

always  earnest,  magnetic,  and  fervid  oratory  in  that  high  tri- 
bunal, as  I  often  did,  it  was  not  difficult  to  find  the  source  of 
wondrous  power  over  his  people  and  party,  for  the  "grim 
chief"  always  led.  His  death  by  his  own  hand  at  Leavenworth, 
in  July,  1866,  left  his  party  and  the  State  practically  without 
a  great  national  leader  until  Ingalls  became  seated  as  U.  S. 
senator,  on  March  4,  1873. 

Unlike  the  older  States,  the  pioneers  who  settle  any  new 
country  tender  high  premiums  for  the  wisdom,  push,  energy, 
and  mental  capacity  of  the  ambitious  young  man.  When  In- 
galls located  in  the  Territory  in  1858,  all  were  commoners  in 
Kansas ;  the  soil  was  virgin ;  they  there  had  no  inherited  states- 
manship; no  one  could  claim  that  he  was  entitled  to  any  public 
position  on  account  of  prestige  of  ancestry,  for  every  comer 
stood  upon  an  equal  footing — brains,  energy,  and  foresight  won 
out.  By  virtue  of  his  commanding  position  and  unlimited 
power,  Lane  had  been  a  worshiped  or  feared,  beloved  or  hated 
leader.  The  position  of  Ingalls  as  a  leader  at  once  became 
unique,  scholarly,  intellectual,  and  so  continued  until  his  death 
on  August  16,  1900;  but  his  leadership  always  had  behind  it 
wisdom  and  learning;  his  brain,  tongue,  and  pen  always  laid 
down  and  enforced  the  thoughts  and  theories  of  the  trained, 
scholarly,  forceful,  intellectual  athlete.  On. occasions  Ingalls 
was  sarcastic,  even  vitriolic;  he  never  was  a  politician,  but 
from  the  day  he  landed  in  Kansas  until  the  closing  scene,  by 
sheer  force  of  his  vast  learning  and  intellectual  power  as 
scholar,  speaker,  word-painter,  he  wielded  a  rapier  as  sharp 
and  keen  as  a  Damascus  blade,  maintained  his  proud  position 
as  the  foremost  citizen  of  the  State,  and  was  always  the  same 
alert,  kind-hearted,  level-headed  gentleman. 

For  many  years  questions  of  local  politics  have  neither 
concerned  nor  even  amused  me ;  but  in  national  affairs  I  occa- 


140  RECOLLECTIONS 

sionally  fear  the  country  will  go  to  "the  demnition  bowwows" 
unless  I  make  a  few  talks.  I  confess  that  in  the  campaign  of 
1896  I  made  some  speeches  on  the  money  question  which  found 
their  way  into  newspapers,  and  one  of  the  last  autograph 
letters  I  ever  had  from  Ingalls  urged  me  to  print  these  efforts 
in  pamphlet  form  and  mail  him  a  copy. 

From  the  press  accounts  of  the  first  election  of  Ingalls 
as  the  successor  of  Samuel  C.  Pomeroy  in  the  Senate,  from 
memory  I  now  recall  these  incidents:  In  the  legislative  joint 
session,  a  scene  of  the  wildest  confusion  followed  Senator 
York's  dramatic  expose  of  Pomeroy ;  nominations  were  made, 
votes  called,  motions  made,  and  everything  was  in  an  up- 
roar. But  one  man  that  ever  lived  in  Kansas  could  have 
poured  oil  on  the  troubled  waters  and  restored  order — and 
Jim  Lane  was  dead.  When  the  final  vote  was  being  taken, 
one  legislator  from  the  short-grass  country  was  heard  to  say : 
"We  were  all  running  wild,  stampeded  like  a  herd  of  Texas 
steers;  our  sole  object  was  to  defeat  the  briber,  most  of  our 
fellows  were  voting  for  one  'Jingles,'  or  Ingalls,'  or  somebody 
I  didn't  know,  and  when  my  name  was  at  last  reached,  I  fol- 
lowed suit;  my  vote  was  counted  for  Ingalls,  who  won;  but 
what  name  I  gave,  or  who  the  hell  I  voted  for,  I  don't  know 
today,  and  the  only  thing  I  am  certain  about  is  that  I  didn't 
vote  for  Pomeroy."  Tall,  straight,  picturesque,  slender,  stately, 
when  it  was  all  over,  this  mental  athlete  coolly  buttoned  his 
coat  about  him  and  placidly  said :  "While  surprised  and  grat- 
ified, my  one  consolation  is  that  I  came  from  my  home  on  a 
pass  and  the  gross  sum  of  money  which  my  entire  campaign 
cost  me  was  the  thirty-five  cents  I  paid  for  my  luncheon  today 
down  the  street  at  a  restaurant." 

The  last  time  I  recollect  to  have  met  Senator  Ingalls  was 
at  Washington,  in  1898,  when  he  and  his  old-time  Kansas 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  141 

friend,  Judge  Johnston,  with  James  Lane  Allen  and  myself, 
were  strolling  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  Directly  opposite 
Hancock's  famous  thirst  emporium,  known  for  seventy  years 
as  "The  Old  Curiosity  Shop,"  one  of  the  party  suggested  that 
we  all  go  over  there  and  take  a  social  nip ;  but  in  his  courtly 
way  Ingalls  declined.  Then  I  inquired :  "Did  you  never  drink, 
Senator?"  His  answer  was:  "Oh,  yes,  sir;  when  first  I  went 
to  Kansas  Territory  I  drank  a  great  deal  of  whisky ;  it  was  the 
only  recreation  I  had." 

The  people  of  Kansas  have  of  late  further  honored  that 
fair  State  in  perpetuating  the  memory  of  its  foremost  repre- 
sentative, by  placing  in  the  Hall  of  Fame  at  the  Nation's  capital 
a  magnificent  maible  statue  of  John  James  Ingalls. 

WILLIAM  S.  MORGAN,  Marion  County,  West  Virginia.  In 
my  boyhood  days  back  in  Marion  County  with  no  little  pride 
I  often  listened  to  the  talks  of  four  men  who  were  then  friends 
and  neighbors  of  our  family,  and  who  in  turn  represented  our 
old  district  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  They  were 
William  S.  Morgan,  along  in  the  decade  commencing  in  1830; 
Colonel  Thomas  S.  Haymond,  elected  in  1840;  Doctor  Zedekiah 
Kidwell,  from  1853  to  1857;  and  Benjamin  F.  Martin,  after  I 
left  there,  from  1876  to  1881 — all  Marion  County  men,  strong, 
vigorous,  and  able. 

Mr.  Morgan  then  lived  near  the  village  of  Rivesville, 
where  my  father  was  for  a  short  time  a  merchant,  along  about 
1850,  and  at  his  store  this  venerable-looking  and  wise  man 
made  his  headquarters.  He  was  even  then  white  of  hair,  tall, 
and  slender  in  person,  of  unusual  natural  dignity,  and,  what 
was  then  of  still  greater  consequence  to  me,  he  loved  to  talk 
to  children  and  had  been  a  member  of  Congress !  We  had 
heard  of  God  and  the  President  and  senators,  but  to  actually 
hear  the  words  of  a  real,  live  ex-member  of  Congress  was  a 


142  RECOLLECTIONS 

glorious  treat !  Morgan's  family  ran  back  to  early  Colonial 
days,  and  that  was  a  fact  to  be  proud  of  in  that  country  and 
time.  He  was  not  primarily  an  educated  man,  but  by  close 
observation  and  study  had  become  of  exceptionally  rare  mental 
endowments  and  seemed  never  so  happy  as  when  imparting 
his  rich  stores  of  wisdom  to  the  young.  He  lived  beloved  and 
esteemed  by  all  until  after  the  Civil  War.  Aside  from  his 
vast  powers  of  statement,  reason,  and  logic .  as  a  statesman, 
he  became  a  national  character  in  the  scientific  world  as  a 
painter  of  water-colors  and  in  his  favorite  study  of  botany 
and  natural  history. 

THOMAS  S.  HAYMOND  is  distinctly  and  pleasantly  recalled 
as  a  loud,  florid  talker,  but  withal  a  careful  and  efficient  pub- 
lic officer  in  both  State  and  national  affairs.  He  went  South 
in  our  war,  never  could  tolerate  the  new-fangled  policies 
of  the  rising  generation,  and  died  at  Richmond,  Virginia,  in 
1869. 

ZEDEKIAH  KIDWELL  was  one  of  the  most  popular  men  of 
his  day  and  a  political  manager  of  national  repute.  For  four 
years  he  demonstrated  the  fact  that  as  speaker,  writer,  thinker, 
worker,  he  was  surpassed  by  no  member  of  the  national  Con- 
gress. Until  his  death  in  1872,  he  was  always  powerful  in 
clear,  logical  argument  and  no  citizen  of  my  old  home  county 
had  either  more  or  better  fighting  friends. 

BENJAMIN  F.  MARTIN  was  born  on  a  farm  near  my 
father's  in  1828,  and  in  private  life,  as  well  as  in  Congress, 
his  chief  claim  to  loving  distinction  was  his  courtly,  polished, 
suave  way  of  performing  every  duty  imposed  upon  him  by 
either  friend  or  foe.  He  couldn't  help  being  a  gentleman,  for 
he  was  born  that  way;  and  yet  he  was  as  strong  as  he  was 
good. 

MASON  SUMMERS  PETERS,  Argentine,  Kansas.  When  first 
we  met,  this  man  was  buying  live  stock  through  my  country 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  143 

for  a  wealthy  man  named  Mosier.  He  then  lived  in  Clinton 
County,  Missouri,  and  this  was  at  Gallatin,  away  back  in  the 
early  spring  of  1867.  We  were  of  the  same  age;  his  cheeks 
were  rosy,  his  face  ruddy,  and  a  small,  silky  boyish  mous- 
tache ornamented  his  upper  lip,  while  his  hair  was  brown 
and  abundant.  He  looked  and  acted  like  a  gentleman, 
and  I  then  suspected,  and  later  knew,  that  the  blood  of 
my  own  kind  of  people  coursed  through  his  veins — some- 
times hot  and  fiery,  but  generally  cool.  He  may  not  be  as 
handsome  now  as  he  was  then,  but  he  knows  a  lot  more; 
for  his  hair  is  mostly  gone,  and,  as  the  darkey  said,  the 
time  he  now  saves  in  combing  his  head  he  loses  in  washing 
his  face,  while  his  whitish  full  whiskers  evidence  the  steady 
march  of  over  forty-two  years.  While  he  was  busy  in  '67  his 
employer  got  on  a  protracted  drunk  and  lost  a  thousand  dollars 
or  so  in  horse-racing  and  other  kindred  amusements.  Hosier's 
good  old  father  came  to  Gallatin,  took  in  his  son's  condition 
and  wisely  called  for  an  accounting.  But  young  Mosier  had 
lost  the  money,  couldn't  account  or  pay  over,  happened  to 
charge  their  young  employee  with  having  embezzled  the  funds, 
and  had  him  arrested.  No  one  there  believed  the  defendant 
guilty,  and  to  my  own  knowledge  two  of  the  citizens  of  Gal- 
latin then  stood  by  him — Major  S.  P.  Cox  and  myself.  The 
law  required  two  sureties ;  the  Major  was  rich  and  I  poor,  but 
this  gave  him  the  two  sureties,  and  the  young  man  didn't  go 
to  jail.  The  facts  all  leaked  out  before  the  hearing  and  our 
friend  was  promptly  discharged,  but  what  became  of  his  ac- 
cuser I  never  knew.  Soon  after  this,  in  1870,  our  friend  was 
elected  county  clerk  of  Clinton,  and  the  only  complaint  con- 
cerning his  official  action  at  Plattsburg  was  that,  while  a  "bred 
in  the  bone"  Democrat,  he  would  insist  on  helping  distressed 
Union  soldiers  as  well  as  his  own  kind.  His  term  ended,  he 
came  to  Kansas  City,  engaged  in  the  live  stock  commission 


144  RECOLLECTIONS 

business,  and  has  since  both  made  and  lost  fortunes.  But  one 
of  the  many  things  I  have  always  honored  and  respected  him 
for  was,  that  when  fortune  changed  and  he  became  rich,  while 
the  good  Major  grew  poor,  Peters  kept  Major  Cox  employed 
at  a  good  salary  for  years,  out  in  Kansas  and  Colorado,  buying 
cattle.  In  1896  his  people  sent  him  as  their  representative  to 
the  U.  S.  Congress,  and  with  conspicuous  fidelity  he  there 
served  and  won  the  personal  friendship  and  even  affection  of 
the  peerless  speaker  Tom  Reed.  During  his  Congressional 
career  I  was  much  at  the  Nation's  capital.  Whether  officers 
work  or  play  down  there,  the  people  soon  find  out,  and  I  have 
yet  to  find  the  city  that  sizes  a  man  up  so  quickly  or  so  ac- 
curately as  does  Washington.  So  it  came  about  that,  despite 
his  politics,  by  his  rapid,  tireless,  ceaseless  energy,  long  before 
his  term  closed  no  man  in  the  Kansas  delegation  had  accom- 
plished so  much  for  his  people,  his  State,  and  the  Nation  as 
my  old  friend.  While  all  this  pleased  and  gratified  me,  for 
I  had  watched  his  growth  and  strength,  yet  I  was  never  sur- 
prised at  it,  for  I  knew  the  mettle  in  the  man. 

FRANCIS  H.  PIERPONT,  Fairmont,  West  Virginia,  was  born 
in  the  same  year  (1814)  as  my  father;  together  they  were 
•enthusiastic  young  Whigs,  but  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  in 
1 86 1  both  were  pronounced  Union  men  and  from  that  time 
on  until  life  closed,  both  affiliated  with  the  Republican  party. 
Late  in  life  he  spelled  the  name  "Pierpont,"  but  history  has 
it  written  in  the  old  way,  "Pierpoint,"  and  I  now  want  to  so 
write  it  down,  but,  out  of  deference  to  him,  here  spell  the  name 
the  new  way.  From  the  days  of  my  childhood  I  knew  him. 
He  became  a  lawyer,  a  politician,  an  effective  and  powerful 
public  speaker,  and  a  fearless,  sagacious  leader  among  the  men 
and  stirring  times  of  his  day.  Through  all  his  active  and  long 
life  he  retained  the  unaffected  piety  of  his  childhood,  and 
before  the  war  was  for  eighteen  years  the  head  and  front  of  the 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  14S 

Sunday-school  of  his  church  in  Fairmont,  either  as  teacher 
or  superintendent. 

On  a  fly-leaf  of  my  copy  of  Colonel  Theodore  F.  Lang's 
interesting  book,  "Loyal  West  Virginia,"  I  wrote  this  little 
historical  note  years  ago: 

"In  the  autumn  of  1860,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  elected 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  inaugurated  at  Washington 
on  March  4,  1861.  Beginning  with  South  Carolina,  on  Decem- 
ber 20,  1860,  many  of  the  slave-holding  States  seceded  from 
the  Union. 

"The  Virginia  State  Convention  at  Richmond  convened 
February  13,  1861,  and  adopted  an  ordinance  of  secession  on 
April  17,  1861,  which  was  ratified  by  the  voters  of  that  State 
at  an  election  held  May  23,  1861.  I  well  recall  this  election  at 
Farmington,  when  and  where  I  was  present  with  my  father, 
who  then  voted  against  that  ordinance;  but  the  secessionists 
carried  the  election  by  a  majority  of  96,750  out  of  a  total  vote 
of  161,108 — the  men  west  of  the  mountains  largely  voting 
against  secession. 

"The  government  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America 
had  been  established ;  its  troops  fired  on  Fort  Sumter,  in  South 
Carolina,  on  April  12,  1861,  and  this  act  brought  on  the  great 
War  of  1861  to  1865. 

"Union  meetings  had  been  already  held  at  Clarksburg  and 
other  points,  and  on  May  13,  1861,  many  Union  delegates  met,, 
on  call,  at  Washington  Hall,  in  Wheeling,  and  passed  reso- 
lutions in  favor  of  the  Union  cause. 

"On  May  27,  1861,  the  Union  forces  first  came  into  Vir- 
ginia, and  on  June  3,  1861,  under  command  of  Colonel  Ben- 
jamin F.  Kelley,  fought  the  first  real  battle  of  the  Civil  War 
at  Philippi. 

"On  June  n,  1861,  the  Union  Convention  again  convened 
at  Wheeling,  and,  on  the  twentieth  of  that  month,  elected 
Francis  H.  Pierpoint,  of  my  county,  as  the  loyal  Governor  of 
Virginia,  restored.  On  July  i,  1861,  that  Convention  elected 
two  United  States  senators,  and  these,  with  three  delegates  in 
Congress,  took  their  seats  at  Washington  at  the  session  of 
Congress  called  by  President  Lincoln,  July  4,  1861,  their  com- 
missions dating  from  May  23,  1861." 

That  Congressional  delegation  was  composed  of  Waitman 


149  RECOLLECTIONS 

T.  Willey,  of  Morgantown,  and  John  S.  Carlisle,  of  Clarks- 
burg, U.  S.  senators;  and  Jacob  B.  Blair,  of  Parkersburg, 
Kellian  V.  Whaley,  of  Point  Pleasant,  and  William  Guy 
Brown,  of  Kingwood,  as  members  of  the  lower  House  of 
Congress,  and  they  so  remained  until  the  new  State  was 
formed. 

From  Colonial  days  until  West  Virgiania  was  proclaimed 
a  State  in  the  Federal  Union,  the  people  who  there  lived  west 
of  the  Blue  Ridge  had  agitated  the  question  and  prayed  for 
a  separation  from  the  Old  Dominion.  They  claimed  that  under 
both  Colonial  and  State  governments  all  public  improvements 
were  made  and  State  taxes  expended  east  of  the  mountains, 
and  that,  with  the  single .  exception  of  Joseph  Johnson,  of 
Bridgeport,  in  Harrison  County  (the  uncle  of  Waldo  P.  John- 
son, once  a  U.  S.  senator  from  Missouri),  no  Governor  of  that 
State  had  ever  been  chosen  from  Western  Virginia.  •  So  the 
Civil  War  was  the  occasion  rather  than  the  cause  of  the  sep- 
aration. The  people  of  the  old  commonwealth  may  never 
become  reconciled  to  this  change,  and  I  recall  now  the  power 
and  bitterness  in  the  voice  and  appearance  of  ex-Governor 
Henry  A.  Wise  when,  in  a  public  speech  at  Alexandria,  Vir- 
ginia, just  after  the  close  of  the  war,  he  referred  to  the  change 
and  there  characterized  West  Virginia  as  "the  bastard  off- 
spring of  a  political  rape"!  I  was  the  only  hearer  of  that 
speech  who  then  lived  in  the  new  State,  and  shall  never  again 
feel  so  small  as  when  the  fighting  old  Governor  uttered  the 
sentence  quoted. 

Although  justly  called  "The  Father  of  West  Virginia," 
yet  in  fact  Pierpont  never  was  the  Governor  of  that  State. 
Arthur  I.  Boreman  was  the  first  Governor  of  West  Virginia, 
and  he  was  elected  when  the  new  State  was  formed  in  June, 
1863. 

With  prophetic  vision,  Pierpont  early  comprehended  the 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  147 

long  and  bitter  struggle  which  followed  1861.  On  May  23, 
the  day  the  voters  of  that  State  by  their  ballots  decided  that 
Virginia  should  secede,  without  voting,  Pierpont  left  his  Fair- 
mont home  and  attended  a  conference  of  other  loyalists,  at 
Wheeling.  Someone  asked  why  he  did  not  remain  at  home 
and  vote,  and  to  the  query  he  made  this  memorable  reply: 
"Loyal  Virginians,  the  time  for  voting  is  past;  the  time  for 
bullets  is  here."  Pierpont  and  those  who  stood  with  him  at 
once  again  called  their  delegate  convention  at  Wheeling,  under 
the  banner  "Loyal  Virginia  now  or  never,"  for  June  n,  and 
by  a  unanimous  vote  that  convention  on  June  20,  1861,  made 
him  Governor  of  the  restored  government  ot  Virginia,  for 
this  reason :  Many  influential  members  there  argued  that  Vir- 
ginia then  had  a  State  government  at  Richmond ;  that  loyalists 
west  of  the  mountains  could  not  procure  the  consent  of  the 
legislature  of  that  State  to  form  another  State  government; 
that  such  consent  was  absolutely  necessary  and  must  be  had; 
and  that  the  Government  at  Washington  could  not  recognize  a 
State  as  proposed  "because  it  was  not  after  the  mode  pre- 
scribed by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  But  stal- 
wart, courageous  Frank  Pierpont  alone  insisted  that  they  were 
all  wrong.  He  then  gave  them  his  famous  plan  of  action,  which 
in  substance  was:  That  only  a  part  of  Virginia  and  its  legis- 
lature claimed  to  be  out  of  the  Federal  Union;  that  the  acts 
and  doings  of  that  faction  were  in  plain  violation  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  laws  of  both  State  and  Nation ;  that  the  votes 
and  acts  of  the  people  west  of  the  mountains  did  not  depend 
upon  those  living  east  of  the  mountains;  that  Virginia,  as  a 
State,  was  all  right  as  it  stood,  but  that  the  loyal  element  must 
control  its  government.  His  plan  won;  the  restored  govern- 
ment of  Virginia  became  a  fixed  fact;  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment and  the  world  recognized  its  power;  it  was  duly  repre- 
sented in  the  halls  of  Congress,  sent  its  Union  soldiers  to  the 


148  RECOLLECTIONS 

front,  and  it  is  not  strange  to  note  the  fact  now  that  nearly 
two  years  afterward,  in  his  opinion  on  the  proposed  admission 
of  West  Virginia  as  a  separate  State  on  December  31,  1862, 
President  Lincoln  in  substance  followed  and  expressed  the 
same  views  upon  the  facts  and  on  the  legal  questions  involved 
as  Pierpont  had  theretofore  laid  down. 

As  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  Francis  H.  Pierpont  faith- 
fully served  the  people  of  his  native  State  from  1861  to  1868. 
First  the  seat  of  government  was  at  Wheeling,  until  the  form- 
ation of  the  new  State  in  1863 ;  then  at  Alexandria,  Virginia  ; 
and  after  the  fall  of  Richmond,  at  the  executive  mansion 
in  the  old  capital  city. 

In  his  earnest,  vigorous  way  he  returned  his  thanks  to 
the  Convention  of  1861  for  the  honor  conferred  by  his  election 
as  Governor,  and  when  a  personal  and  political  friend  then 
told  Pierpont  that  he  was  the  first  man  in  history  to  return 
thanks  to  those  who  had  put  a  rope  around  his  neck,  the  war 
Governor  uttered  a  great  truth  in  replying:  "Success  is  never 
convicted  of  treason." 

When  my  own  company  was  mustered  into  the  United 
States  service  on  Wheeling  Island  in  1861,  Governor  Pierpont 
paid  us  two  signal  honors  in  personally  calling  upon  the  "boys" 
from  his  old  home  county,  most  of  whom  had  known  him  from 
their  earliest  recollection  and  sometimes  attended  his  Sunday- 
school,  and  in  making  to  us  a  speech  of  unusual  power  and 
ability.  To  this  hour  I  recall  that  earnest,  patriotic,  yet 
fatherly  speech,  and  will  never  forget  how  his  voice  rang  out 
like  a  bugle  as  he  closed  with  the  old  Cromwellian  injunction, 
"Trust  in  God  and  keep  your  powder  dry." 

Becau.se  of  the  turbulent  times  in  which  it  became  a  State, 
West  Virginia  is  often  and  properly  designated  as  "The  Child 
of  the  Storm,"  and  for  the  result  no  one  is  entitled  to  higher 
credit  than  the  forceful,  determined,  patriotic  Frank  Pierpont. 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  140 

He  has  the  credit  too  for  suggesting  the  motto  for  the  new 
State,  "Montani  semper  liberi" — "Mountaineers  are  always 
free." 

At  the  reunion  of  Maulsby's  Battery,  held  on  the  site  of 
Prickett's  old  fort,  at  the  town  of  Catawba,  on  the  Monon- 
gahela  River,  in  Marion  County,  in  September,  1888,  the  good 
old  war  Governor  and  I  spoke  from  the  same  platform.  The 
old-time  fire  and  energy  shone  from  his  patriarchal  face  and 
his  voice  had  lost  none  of  its  charm,  as  he  again  told  that  vast 
audience  the  story  of  the  trials  and  triumphs  of  the  people  west 
of  the  mountains  in  the  days  of  the  war. 

The  last  fighting  in  the  war  in  our  old  county  is  known  in 
history  as  "the  Jones  laid."  The  Confederate  General  William 
E.  Jones,  in  command  of  a  large  force  of  cavalry,  after  a  stiff 
fight,  entered  and  took  possession  of  Fairmont  on  April  29, 
1863.  As  Pierpont  was  then  war  Governor  of  Virginia  and 
an  ardent  and  influential  supporter  of  the  Lincoln  adminis- 
tration at  Washington,  the  Confederates  sought  his  home  there, 
carried  his  rare  and  valuable  library  out  into  the  public  street 
and  then  burned  every  volume  he  had. 

When  Governor  Pierpont  died  not  long  ago,  I  prepared  a 
sketch  of  his  life  and  public  services,  which  then  appeared 
in  the  Kansas  City  Journal  and  later  in  his  home  paper,  the 
Fairmont  West  Virginian. 

In  loving  gratitude  to  the  memory  of  Governor  Pierpont, 
the  State  of  West  Virginia  lately  caused  a  beautitul  marble 
statue  of  their  war  Governor  to  be  set  up  in  Statuary  Hall 
in  the  Nation's  capital,  where  I  saw  it  only  the  other  day,  after 
this  imperfect  sketch  was  in  type.  This  statue  is  to  be  unveiled 
and  formally  presented  by  the  State  to  the  Nation  early  in 
next  year — 1910. 

THOMAS  BRACKETT  REED,  Maine  There  are  only  a  few 
peculiarities  in  the  public  and  private  lite  of  tne  big,  brainy 


150  RECOLLECTIONS 

Speaker  of  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  beloved  by  all  who 
knew  him  well,  and  affectionately  referred  to  as  "Tom  Reed," 
not  in  the  prints  or  known  to  the  people. 

It  has  long  been  a  social  crime  to  overstimulate  at  Wash- 
ington in  the  daytime,  and  many  high  official  positions  have 
been  there  forever  lost  by  a  violation  of  this  rule.  So  when 
on  public  duty  there  during  the  day,  Tom  lived  as  simply  as 
priest  or  nun,  ate  like  a  vegetarian  and  was  as  temperate  as  a 
Kansas  prohibitionist;  but  after  dark,  upon  proper  occasion, 
he  drank  straight  brandy  by  the  tumblerful,  much  like  Justice 
Miller,  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Both  were  big,  mentally  and 
physically,  and  could  stand  such  indulgence.  The  greatest, 
best,  and  safest  of  all  the  "Reed  Rules,"  however,  was:  "Never 
take  a  drink  till  after  dark." 

He  and  I  were  alike  fond  of  General  Logan;  those  who 
were  close  to  "Black  Jack"  always  admired  him,  and  one  of 
his  highest  attributes  was  his  love  for  and  loyalty  to  his  friends. 
I  once  told  Reed  an  amusing  incident  in  Logan's  personal 
experience  out  at  Topeka,  Kansas,  as  the  story  thereof  was  re- 
lated to  me  by  our  other  mutual  friend,  George  R.  Peck.  After 
a  hearty  laugh  over  the  story,  xin  his  deep,  rich  voice,  Reed 
said :  "I  like  John  A.  Logan,  because  he  is  so  damned  human." 
Beneath  his  apparent  frivolity,  however,  and  always  the  servant 
of  his  powerful  will,  ran  the  deep  strong  stream  of  Reed's 
profound  wisdom  and  high  statesmanship.  I  have  heard 
Presidents,  senators,  and  other  dignitaries  talk  to  and  advise 
with  him  upon  public  questions,  and  it  was  always  apparent 
that  each  realized  he  was  talking  with  his  intellectual  superior. 

While  chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee  of  the  House, 
Jenkins  of  Michigan  once  said:  "Personally  Tom  is  so  big 
that  he  towers  over  all;  but  I  am  not  for  him  for  our  Execu- 
tive, because  I  know  he  would  be  President  and  Cabinet  and 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  151 

both  Houses  of  Congress,  and   I   am  not   so  damn   sure  he 
wouldn't  also  try  to  be  the  Supreme  Court." 

Before  Reed  became  Speaker,  and  while  he  was  a  member 
of  Congress,  I  spent  some  days  at  his  home  in  Portland,  where 
everybody  spoke  in  highest  praise  of  Tom  Reed  as  lawyer, 
man,  and  statesman,  and  from  Maine  came  on  to  Washington. 
In  our  long  talk  I  then  referred  to  the  esteem  in  which  he 
was  held  at  home,  and  asked  him  this  (to  me)  ever-present 
question :  "How  can  you  get  your  consent  to  come  down  here 
term  after  term  simply  to  be  one  member  of  this  damned  bear 
garden,  when  you  could  remain  at  home,  be  your  own  master, 
and  in  your  chosen  profession  make  five  times  more  money 
than  your  salary?"  His  answer  gave  me  the  key  to  his  public 
career  in  these  words :  "I  '11  tell  you,  Me  Dougal :  I  come  down 
here  term  after  term  mainly  because  there  are  always  a  lot 
of  damned  fellows  in  my  district  who  say  I  shall  not  come." 
Many  others  must  make  the  like  sacrifice  for  the  same  reason ; 
but  the  love  of  neither  fight  nor  people  ever  carried  me  so 
far.  Indeed,  this  subject  now  recalls  an  incident  which  oc- 
curred in  my  office  here  about  twenty  years  ago :  A  delegation 
headed  by  Colonel  Thomas  B.  Bullene  waited  upon  me,  with 
pledges  of  ample  campaign  funds  and  assurances  of  success, 
and  tendered  me  the  nomination  for  Congress.  At  the  close  of 
their  several  talks,  I  said:  "When  a  boy  I  spent  four  years 
in  an  earnest,  patriotic,  and  somewhat  dangerous  effort  to  save 
this  country;  through  the  efforts  of  myself  and  nearly  three 
million  others  who  were  engaged  in  the  same  business,  this 
country  was  then  saved ;  now  the  duty  devolves  upon  you,  as 
representing  the  others,  to  keep  it  saved  for  humanity,  and  if 
you  don't  do  it,  the  country  may  go  to  hell  semiannually  so  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  for  I  am  through,  and  therefore  decline." 
So  the  only  question  in  life  since  the  war  has  been  how  not 
to  do  it ;  how  to  be  out  and  keep  out  of  the  limelight. 


152  RECOLLECTIONS 

But,  under  our  system  of  government,  someone  must 
shoulder  and  carry  the  burden,  and  as  long  as  such  men  as 
Reed,  of  Maine,  consent  to  do  the  work,  no  matter  from  what 
motive,  this  country  may  congratulate  itself,  for  it  is  and  will 
be  in  the  keeping  of  safe,  sane,  sensible  patriots. 

JERRY  SIMPSON,  Kansas.  This  native  of  Nova  Scotia  had 
all  the  experiences  and  passed  through  all  the  stages  of  human 
life.  About  my  own  age,  he  never  had  or  followed  any  rule 
or  regulation  in  thought,  work,  study,  speaking,  or  anything 
else;  but  just  the  same  he  arrived.  The  world  .knew  it,  and 
for  years  he  led  the  forces  of  a  once  powerful  political  party 
in  the  West — the  Populists.  To  arouse  the  followers  of  his 
people  to  the  highest  pitch,  and  confuse  and  scatter  his  op- 
ponents, Jerry  assumed  a  crudity  to  which  he  was  by  nature 
a  stranger ;  yet,  by  the  policy  pursued  during  his  Congressional 
career  of  many  terms,  he  drew  to  himself  the  attention  of 
world-wide  thinkers  and  the  warm  affection  of  those  who 
came  in  personal  contact  with  him.  Many  of  those  who  never 
saw  or  knew  the  man  spoke  of  him  in  derision  as  "Sockless 
Socrates"  or  as  "the  sockless  statesman  of  Medicine  Lodge," 
and  of  all  Americans  he  was  least  understood.  From  the  Na- 
tion's capital  at  Washington  to  the  plains  of  New  Mexico, 
however,  we  ate,  drank,  walked,  and  talked  together  many  and 
many  a  time,  and  now  that  he  is  gone,  it  may  be  said  of  him 
that,  as  I  knew  him,  he  was  in  all  places  and  under  all  circum- 
stances a  quietly  but  well  groomed,  honorable,  consistent,  con- 
siderate gentleman. 

Jerry  and  Mason  S.  Peters  were  in  the  lower  House  of 
Congress  together,  became  inseparable  companions,  and  to- 
gether often  strolled  into  my  law  office  for  an  hour's  talk. 
The  world  does  not  know  that  this  soldier,  sailor,  philosopher, 
citizen,  and  statesman  was  one  of  the  bright,  noble,  brave, 
brainy  men  of  his  time ;  and  was  as  strong,  reliable,  and  loyal 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  153 

as  the  North  Star,  yet  this  and  more  is  true.  Thomas  orackett 
Reed,  while  he  was  Speaker  and  Jerry  a  member  of  the  U.  S. 
Congress,  once  said  of  him  to  me:  "There  is  the  one  man 
in  this  House  whose  tongue  I  fear."  At  home  as  he  always 
was  in  wit,  repartee,  humor,  retort,  and  logic,  yet  no  one  ever 
knew  him  in  the  heat  of  debate  to  wound  or  cause  sorrow  to 
a  single  fellow-man. 

Jerry  was  not  college  bred,  not  yet  would  the  graduate 
call  him  a  scholar.  Few  of  the  university  graduates  of  Europe 
or  America,  however,  knew  as  much  as  he.  Blessed  with  a 
rarely  retentive  memory,  he  read  much,  thought  more,  and 
never  forgot  anything.  So  the  history,  literature,  religion, 
poetry,  and  music  of  the  wide  world  became  his;  and  among 
the  many,  no  one  has  yet  been  known  to  me  who  could  and 
did  discuss  all  these  with  either  more  accurate  information 
or  in  a  more  interesting,  entertaining,  or  instructive  manner. 
Then,  too,  he  was  a  living,  breathing,  walking,  and  talking 
encyclopedia  of  the  marvelously  curious  in  history  and  fiction, 
and  in  any  field  of  learning,  of  ancient  or  modern  times,  seemed 
at  home  along  paths  that  were  strange,  new  and  unknown  to 
the  average  citizen.  All  these,  with  his  ready,  hearty,  whole- 
some ways,  endeared  the  man  to  all  who  knew  him  closely; 
and  without  a  single  exception,  all  these  felt  a  deep  personal 
loss  when  death  closed  his  career  in  the  autumn  of  1905. 

ALEXANDER  H.  STEPHENS,  Georgia.  After  the  war  and 
while  he  represented  his  district  in  Congress  at  Washington, 
I  often  met  and  enjoyed  talking  with  the  distinguished  Vice- 
President  of  the  defunct  Confederacy.  In  more  ways  than 
one  he  was  to  me  the  most  gifted  man  and  the  readiest  writer 
in  all  the  South,  wise,  just,  generous.  His  public  speeches, 
books,  and  doings  are  known  of  all ;  but  the  impressions  he 
made  upon  me  were :  that  his  temper  was  always  even,  sweet, 
and  gentle ;  his  voice  as  low  and  soft  and  musical  as  a  woman's. 


154  RECOLLECTIONS 

His  abundant  iron-gray  hair  was  covered  by  a  semi-military 
hat  of  soft  texture,  and  his  hands  were  like  bird  claws,  yet  al- 
ways open ;  but  when  he  came  down  the  aisle  to  speak,  which 
was  not  often,  his  fellow-members  always  crowded  about  his 
wheel-chair  to  catch  his  every  word.  Brains  and  learning  and 
wisdom  and  patriotism  were  his ;  and  the  Constitution,  laws, 
and  flag  of  his  restored  country  seemed  the  one  grand  passion 
of  his  closing  years. 

WILLIAM  JOEL  STONE,  Missouri.  As  a  country  lawyer, 
member  of  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  Governor  of  Mis- 
souri, United  States  senator,  public  speaker,  politician,  states- 
man, and  leader  of  men,  I  have  known  and  studied  this  gifted 
native  of  Kentucky  for  many  years,  without  being  able  to  fix 
his  exact  status  in  the  future  history  of  our  country. 

As  a  looker-on,  I  attended  the  sessions  of  the  great  Dem- 
ocratic National  Convention  at  Chicago  in  1896.  There  I 
first  observed  the  power  and  influence  of  this  man  over  both 
the  men  and  measures  of  his  party.  Bryan's  "crown  of  gold" 
speech  was  great ;  but  Senator  Stone,  Governor  Altgeld,  and 
Senator  Tillman  were  far  and  away  the  three  leaders  who 
then  held  that  great  body  of  men  and  swayed  them  as  one 
would  a  tiny  wand.  Stone  has  ever  since  exercised  that  power 
when  and  as  he  wished  in  the  councils  of  his  party. 

In  securing  the  Democratic  National  Convention  of  1900 
at  Kansas  City,  a  large  body  of  Western  Democrats  appeared 
before  their  National  Committee  at  Washington,  and  I  was 
selected  to  go  along  with  and  assist  them,  because  of  my 
familiarity  with  national  affairs.  Senator  Stone  was  the  chair- 
man of  our  delegation  and  no  point  ever  escaped  him.  One 
evening,  at  his  direction,  Moses  C.  Wetmore,  Seth  Cobb,  and 
myself  were  sent  through  the  rain  in  a  carriage  from  the 
Raleigh  to  the  Gordon  Hotel  to  secure  the  vote  of  one  man — 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  155 

and  got  it.  But,  on  account  of  the  long  drive  and  the  rain, 
Colonel  Wetmore  was  taken  violently  ill,  and  Stone  stayed  up 
with  and  waited  on  him  all  night  long.  No  heartless  man 
would  do  a  thing  like  that.  To  the  work,  sagacity,  and  man- 
agement of  Stone,  more  than  all  else,  is  due  the  credit  of 
securing  that  Convention. 

After  the  National  Convention  was  over,  the  bills  all  paid, 
and  everybody  happy,  the  management  gave  a  Convention  ban- 
quet up  at  the  Coates  House  and  Stone  was  our  guest  of  honor. 
All  might  have  gone  smoothly,  but  for  some  unknown  reason 
I  was  called  upon  by  the  toastmaster  to  respond  to  some  senti- 
ment— which  I  didn't  do.  But  in  lieu  thereof  I  talked  of  our 
trip  down  to  Washington,  the  benefits  derived  by  the  city,  etc., 
and  then  purposely  referred  to  myself  as  the  only  Republican 
who  went  with  the  delegation.  As  anticipated,  hands  went  up 
and  two  other  men  announced  that  they,  too,  had  worked  for 
the  cit}  as  Republicans.  This  was  answered  by  saying  that  I 
had  not  known,  nor  even  suspected',  that  they  were  members 
of  my  party,  and  that  from  their  actions  all  along  the  line 
I  had  the  right  to  and  did  assume  that  the^e  two  gentlemen 
were  Democrats!  Then,  as  nearly  as  now  recalled,  I  said; 
"I  know  little  and  care  less  what  others  may  think  about  your 
party,  Mr.  Toastmaster;  but  my  own  judgment  has  been  and 
is  that  about  the  organization  ot  the  great  Democratic  party 
there  is  somewhere  concealed  that  immortal  spark  which,  for 
want  of  a  better  name,  man  calls  the  divine,  for  the  reason 
that  in  my  day  that  party  has  violated  every  law  of  God  and 
man  and  committed  every  crime  known  to  the  calendar  and 
still  lives!  And  now,  Mr.  Toastmaslei,  if  I  were  a  Demo- 
crat— which,  thank  God!  I  am  not — from  this  night  forward 
I  should  work  without  ceasing  with  two  Democrats  objects 
in  view :  first,  to  keep  in  the  United  State  Senate,  so  long 
as  he  may  live  and  that  party  remains  in  the  ascendancy  IH 


156  RECOLLECTIONS 

Missouri,  that  grand,  old,  honest,  sturdy  Confederate,  Francis 
M.  Cockrell ;  and  second,  until  that  party  should  nominate  for 
the  Presidency  of  the  United  States  that  other  stalwart  Mis- 
souri Democrat  who  is  tonight  our  guest  of  honor,  William 
Joel  Stone." 

The  whirligig  of  politics  has  made  many  revolutions  since 
that  night.  My  good  friend  Cockrell  has  been  succeeded  in 
the  U.  S.  Senate  by  another  good  friend  in  the  person  of 
Major  William  Warner,  of  this  city,  and  the  ex-Senator  is  now 
serving  his  country,  by  the  grace  of  a  Republican  President, 
as  a  member  of  the  National  Inter-State  Commerce  Com- 
mission, while  Stone  is  again  a  U.  S.  senator  and  has  not  yet 
been  nominated  by  his  party  for  President.  Maybe  he  never 
will  be ;  but  to  me  he  remains  a  great  power  in  his  party  and  is 
one  of  the  wonders  of  his  country.  He  does  everything  earn- 
estly and  faithfully,  plays  both  politics  and  poker  to  win,  and 
up  to  date  has  won  at  both.  What  will  the  harvest  be  ?  Dios 
sabe. 

WILLIAM  WARNER,  Kansas  City,  Missouri.  This  soldier, 
lawyer,  orator,  patriot,  statesman,  has  been  a  citizen  of  Kansas 
City  since  1865 ;  is  known,  respected,  and  beloved  at  home 
and  abroad ;  has  filled  many  other  public  offices,  from  mayor 
of  this  city  to  Commander-in-chief  of  the  G.  A.  R.,  and  was 
elected  as  the  Republican  Missouri  senator  in  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  in  1905. 

He  is  a  native  of  Wisconsin,  and  in  the  Civil  War,  amid 
the  rattle  of  musketry  and  the  roar  of  cannon,  won  for  himself 
the  proud  title  of  major.  Whatever  he  has  been  or  may  be 
to  all  others,  yet  he  will  always  be  affectionately  called  "Major 
Warner"  by  Kansas  Cityans. 

In  the  court-room  and  on  his  feet,  before  judge,  jury,  or 
public  audience,  few  Americans  are  so  tactful,  ready,  good- 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  I  HAVE  MET  157 

natured,  or  powerful,  for  in  all  these  situations  he  is  at  home 
and  at  his  best. 

We  first  met  as  delegates  in  the  State  Republican  Con- 
vention at  Jefferson  City  in  1870,  and  from  that  day  to  this 
have  been  much  together.  The  interesting  and  pleasant  inci- 
dents in  his  busy  life  during  the  past  forty  years  would  fill 
a  volume,  but  the  curious  must  be  referred  to  his  public  record, 
with  the  reminder  that  there  is  a  world  of  difference  between 
a  record  and  a  prospectus.  Soon  after  Major  Warner  was 
made  a  U.  S.  senator,  I  delivered  the  address  in  presenting  his 
portrait,  painted  by  my  other  old  friend,  John  C.  Merine,  to  the 
Public  Library  of  Kansas  City,  and  the  Senator's  response  was 
one  of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  of  his  life. 

WAITMAN  T.  WIU<EY,  Morgantown,  West  Virginia. 
When  this  man  was  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame  as  a  U.  S. 
senator  of  the  restored  government  of  Virginia,  and  later 
of  the  new  State,  my  learned  and  deeply  religious  Grandfather 
Boggess  more  than  once  told  me  the  story  of  the  birth,  youth, 
and  manhood  of  "Wait"  Willey.  While  the  Senator  was  still 
a  baby,  death  claimed  his  mother,  and  after  the  body  was 
lowered,  a  venerable  preacher,  who  had  conducted  the  funeral 
services,  standing  at  the  head  of  her  grave,  took  the  baby  boy 
in  his  arms  and,  with  tears  streaming  down  his  face,  fervently 
said:  "May  God  Almighty  protect  and  ever  bless  this  infant." 
And  in  reciting  the  incident  Grandfather,  who  was  present 
and  heard  the  preacher,  always  added:  "If  an  earnest  prayer 
was  ever  answered  and  granted,  then  that  prayer  was,  for 
from  his  birth  to  this  day  God  has  surely  both  blessed  and 
protected  our  grand  and  great  representative  in  the  United 
States  Senate."  The  fact  that  I  had  known  him  from  boy- 
hood led  me  to  watch  with  unusual  care  the  personal  and 
political  movements  of  this  man  as  a  senator,  and  especially 


158  RECOLLECTIONS 

while  I  was  in  Washington  just  after  the  Civil  War.  He 
tall,  spare,  smooth-shaven,  with  a  rapid,  springy  step,  and  no 
senator  of  his  clay  was  more  watchful  or  vigilant  on  com- 
mittees or  more  effective  in  his  many  public  speeches  while 
devoting  his  attention  to  all  public  affairs,  and  more  especially 
to  every  question  which  might  relate  to  the  now  State  of  West 
Virginia 

When  he  and  my  grandfather  were  younger,  as  a  boy  I 
often  listened  to  their  grave  and  thoughtful  discussions,  but 
my  particular  delight  was  to  hear  them  talk  upon  the  early 
settlement,  settlers,  old-timers,  and  development  of  their  im- 
mediate country.  If  there  was  a  person,  either  high  or  low, 
living  within  or  on  the  waters  of  the  Monongahela  that  both 
did  not  know  all  about,  I  never  knew  it. 

In  the  times  of  the  war  the  Senator's  elder  brother,  Wil- 
liam J.  Willey,  went  Southward,  and  at  Lee's  surrender,  in 
1865,,  was  in  command  of  a  Virginia  regiment  in  the  Confed- 
erate Army.  Colonel  Willey  was  a  military  man  even  before 
the  war,  and  had  his  store  and  many  houses  at  Farmington, 
which  was  then  my  father's  post-office,  and  there  I  knew  all  the 
family  rather  closely  for  my  years.  When  the  Union  forces 
under  General  McClellan  occupied  Farmington  late  in  May, 
1861,  they  raised  the  old  Stars  and  Stripes  over  Colonel  Wil- 
ley's  home,  for  it  was  the  best  and  biggest  in  town.  The  owner 
was  an  officer  in  the  Confederate  Army,  and  there  that  flag 
floated,  to  the  delight  of  Unionists,  for  months.  The  father  of 
the  Colonel  and  the  Senator  was  an  old-time,  rich,  aristocratic 
Virginia  planter,  made  his  home  at  the  house  of  his  eldest  boy, 
and  was  intensely  Southern.  Like  the  ancient  King  of  Israel, 
Uncle  Billy  Willey  "was  old  and  stricken  in  years,"  and 
towards  the  autumn  of  1861  first  realized  that  his  days  were 
numbered.  So  he  wired  the  Senator  at  Washington  to  come 
at  once  to  Farmington,  and,  like  the  good  and  dutiful  son  he 


A  FEW  OTHER  STATESMEN  i  HAVE  MET  159 

was,  Waitman  took  the  fiist  train  and  soon  stood  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  dying  father.  In  a  failing  voice,  but  with  the 
tires  of  the  Southland  still  glowing  in  his  eyes,  the  old  man  said : 
"Wait,  you  know  1  own  two  plantations;  that  I  have  made 
my  last  will,  in  which  I  devised  to  your  elder  brother  William 
my  plantation  up  on  the  hill  here  near  Farmington,  in  Ma- 
rion County,  and  to  yourself  my  plantation  down  near  you 
in  Monongahela  County;  you  know,  too,  that  I  am  and  have 
always  been  a  Southern  man;  1  hope  the  Lincoln  government 
at  Washington  will  go  down  in  defeat,  and  that  the  Con- 
federacy will  win  and  be  established  as  our  Government;  I 
love  the  Stars  and  Bars  and  hate  the  Stars  and  Stripes ;  the  old 
flag  floats  over  this  house ;  the  Yankee  soldiers  will  not  lower 
and  remove  it  as  I  want  them  to ;  now,  Wait,  you  are  in  public 
life  at  the  so-called  capital  down  at  Washington,  and  have  the 
power  to  have  that  hated  flag  hauled  down  any  day ;  Wait,  you 
must  heie  and  now  make  up  your  mind,  as  I  have  mine,  either 
you  have  this  flag  taken  down  now,  or  I  '11  take  down  that 
Monongahela  plantation  "  The  old  man  died  happy;  his  will 
was  not  changed. 

One  moonlight  night  last  summer  1  was  sitting  on  the 
broad  piazza  of  the  Saratoga  Hotel  over  at  Excelsior  Springs, 
only  thirty-three  miles  from  here,  and  engaged  in  a  pleasant 
talk  with  a  gentleman  who  was  also  a  guest.  He  was  tall, 
slender,  erect,  with  good  teeth,  abundant  hair  and  mustache, 
which  were  always  caiefully  brushed,  and  a  most  interesting 
conversationalist.  Someway  1  happened  to  mention  a  con- 
tractor on  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  when  I  was  a 
boy,  who  in  buying  timber  lor  the  road  in  my  country  had  an 
appliance  that  to  me  seemed  a  miraculous  sort  of  device,  but  by 
which  he  could  accurately  determine  the  height  of  a  tree  as 
well  as  the  amount  of  lumber  it  would  produce,  and  that  this 


150  RECOLLECTIONS 

gentleman's  .name  was  Henry  L.  Hunt.  He  drew  me  on  until 
1  had  told  him  all  about  my  own  people,  my  country,  the  neigh- 
bors and  friends  of  my  childhood,  the  marriage  in  1851  of  this 
contractor  with  Miss  Sarah,  the  second  daughter  of  Colonel 
Willey,  etc.,  etc. ;  and  then  greatly  surprised  me  by  saying . 
"This  is  a  rare  and  unusual  occurrence,  but  the  truth  is  that 
1  am  the  same  Henry  L.  Hunt  of  whom  you  have  spoken; 
after  that  road  was  completed,  I  was  was  for  a  time  its  super- 
visor, went  from  Virginia  to  Kansas  Territory  in  the  fall  of 
1854,  and  am  now  over  eighty-six  years  of  age."  In  our  daily 
walks  for  the  next  few  days,  Hunt  gave  me  many  of  his  per- 
sonal experiences  since  last  we  met,  fifty-six  years  before,  and 
froiri  his  travels  and  rich  store  of  information  on  nearly  every 
conceivable  subject  kept  me  deeply  interested  all  the  time.  If 
there  was  was  a  person  or  thing  about  old  Marion  County 
not  mentioned  and  discussed,  the  omission  was  clearly  trace- 
able to  want  of  time.  In  his  wanderings  over  the  world  he 
often  met  his  wife's  uncle  while  Senator  Willey  was  at  Wash- 
ington in  the  '6os,  and  in  his  declining  days  watched  over  old 
Confederate  Colonel  Willey ;  from  each  of  these  two  brother  * 
he  had  the  story  of  the  talk  at  Farmington  when  "Uncle  Billy" 
Willey  lay  dying;  and,  being  a  New  Yorker  by  birth,  Hunt 
was  a  great  favorite  of  the  distinguished  senator  from  Vir- 
ginia, and  later  from  West  Virginia. 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  161 

VII. 
SOLDIER  FRIENDS. 

WILLIAM  T.  SHERMAN,  The  Army.  Through  his  works, 
campaigns,  and  books,  the  world  knows  the  General's  record 
from  tide-water  to  timber-line  and  neither  words  nor  time  will 
here  be  devoted  to  any  of  these.  But  for  years  after  the  war 
we  were  occasionally  thrown  together  at  Washington  and  else- 
where, and  to  his  shining  example  I  owe  my  present  capacity 
to  attend  and  "make  a  hand"  at  several  banquets  or  dinners 
in  a  given  evening  and  then  retire  in  good  order ;  for  he  always 
made  it  a  point  to  eat  a  little  and  drink  a  little  everywhere 
and  then  go  to  bed  early  and  sober — comparatively. 

After  his  retirement  from  the  head  of  the  Army,  and  in 
1884,  we  were  delegates^ from  Missouri  to  the  National  En- 
campment ot  the  G.  A.  R.,  at  Minneapolis  in  Minnesota. 
Neither  knew  nor  cared  for  the  many  details  of  the  order,  and 
the  result  was  that  the  "boys"  furnished  a  carriage  and  de- 
tailed me  to  look  after  General  Sherman.  So  for  about  ten 
days,  in  that  city,  on  Lake  Minnetonka  and  at  St.  Paul,  the 
General,  Miss  Rachel  Sherman,  Mrs.  McDougal,  and  myself, 
were  together  most  of  the  time. 

One  day  at  the  encampment,  pending  a  row  between 
General  Charles  Grosvenor,  of  Ohio,  and  the  Dakota  dele- 
gation, over  some  resolution  of  theirs,  the  General  turned  to 
me  and  said:  "Mack,  this  thing  has  grown  monotonous,  let 
us  go  down  to  camp  and  call  upon  our  Missouri  boys."  The 
suggestion  came  as  a  command,  and  together  we  drove  to 
camp,  only  to  find  that  our  Missouri  forces  were  marching  out. 
But  in  a  twinkling  the  news  spread  throughout  the  grounds, 
"General  Sherman  is  here,"  and  in  less  time  than  it  takes  to 


162  RECOLLECTIONS 

write  it,  the  vast  amphitheater  was  filled  with  people,  all 
clamorous  for  a  speech  from  the  old  hero.  In  charge  of  the 
post  commandant,  we  climbed  the  spiral  stairway  of  the  grand 
stand  and  the  General  was  presented.  Panting  like  a  lizard, 
he  could  only  say:  "Your  stairway  has  cut  my  wind;  I  can't 
talk  now ;  my  friend  McDougal  will  entertain  you  till  I  get  my 
breath."  So  the  Lincoln  volunteer  was  "drafted"  on  the  spot 
and  had  to  say  something.  Then  Sherman  spoke  to  them,  as 
only  he  could,  for  twenty  or  thirty  minutes,  and  closed  in  a 
wild  shout  that  drowned  the  roar  of  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony. 
As  we  started  to  leave  the  stand,  the  music  struck  up  "March- 
ing through  Georgia."  In  full  uniform,  I  had  just  gotten  to 
the  center  of  the  stand  when  the  band  reached  the  chorus,  and 
on  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  I  swung  my  military  cap  and 
motioned  that  audience  of  over  fifty  thousand  men  and  women 
to  rise  and  join  me  in  that  wondrous  chorus.  I  led  the  solo; 
the  people  in  front,  all  standing,  triumphant  and  glorious, 
joined  in  the  chorus,  and,  to  complete  the  dramatic  situation, 
General  Sherman  stepped  to  my  side  and  joined  in  like  a  boy, 
just  as  i  f  that  song  were  not  in  his  honor ! 

That  evening  General  Washburn  was  to  give  a  reception 
to  Sherman  at  his  palatial  home  and  the  General  and  I  drove 
from  camp  direct  to  his  home.  Once  there,  the  host  tried  to 
put  Sherman  at  once  at  the  head  of  the  receiving  line;  but 
the  veteran  said:  "No,  no;  Mack  and  I  have  just  driven  up 
from  camp;  our  boots  are  still  muddy  and  I  must  brush  up 
a  little  before  meeting  your  people."  Adjoining  rooms  were 
assigned  us  up  stairs,  and  I  see  the  General  now  as  he  came 
into  my  room,  drying  his  face  and  hands,  and  again  heai  him 
inquire:  "Say,  McDougal,  do  you  know  what  kind  of  a  liver 
our  friend  Washburn  is?"  I  said  no,  but  judging  from  that 
mansion,  he  ought  to  live  well,  and  inquired  ,vhy  he  wanted  to 


SOLDIER  FRIKNDS  163 

know.  He  answered:  "Well,  the  truth  is,  that  I  am  as  dry 
as  a  fish  and  want  a  little  nip  mighty  bad."  As  soon  as  we 
got  down  stairs,  Washburn  placed  the  General  at  the  head  of 
the  receiving  line,  along  with  General  John  A.  Logan,  Lucius 
W.  Fairchild,  and  many  others,  while  I  fell  in  behind  the 
line  and  told  the  story  of  Sherman's  soldier  thirst  to  General 
Negley,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was  among  Washburn's  many 
guests  and  knew  just  how  the  house  was  supplied.  In  his 
quaint  German  way,  Negley  simply  said:  "Watch  me;  I  '11  fix 
him."  Noting  Sherman's  buoyancy,  our  hostess  soon  said  to 
Negley  and  myself :  "How  happy  General  Sherman  is  in  again 
greeting  his  old  comrades  in  arms  and  the  people  of  our  city." 
"On  the  contrary,  madam,  the  General  is  as  mad  as  hell  right 
now;  he  is  dry  and  wants  a  good  drink  and  wants  it  bad  and 
quick,"  replied  Negley.  Turning  to  me,  with  an  unforgotten 
emphasis,  Mrs.  Washburn  said :  "Mr.  McDougal,  please  get 
the  General  out  of  that  line  as  soon  as  practicable;  take  him 
up  to  your  room,  and  on  the  dresser  there  will  be  found  an 
abundant  supply  of  something  which  I  have  no  doubt  he  needs 
and  you  want."  The  rest  was  easy.  The  General's  only  com- 
ment, as  he  smacked  his  lips,  was:  "Lord,  but  that's  good 
whisky !" 

General  Sherman's  confidence  and  faith  in  Grant  and  his 
admiration  for  the  military  and  civil  genius  of  the  man  were 
always  at  the  forefront  and  he  loved  to  think  and  talk  of  Grant. 
Next  came  Philip  H.  Sheridan,  who  was  then  at  the  head  of 
the  Army.  Personally  I  have  always  thought  that  in  their 
order  Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan  were  the  three  really 
great  leaders  and  strategists  of  our  war,  for  the  Union.  Of 
the  three  civilians  who  became  major-generals  in  the  Civil 
War,  Sherman  seemed  to  accord  the  highest  military  honors  to 
John  A.  Logan,  Francis  P.  Blair,  and  D.  M.  Crocker,  of  Iowa. 
The  latter  died  early ;  but  once  with  great  glee  Sherman  told  me 


164  RECOLLECTIONS 

this  amusing  story  concerning  Crocker's  personal  experience 
while  in  command  of  our  forces  at  Memphis,  Tennessee:  He 
was  there  rigidly  enforcing  orders  against  all  movements  of 
cotton,  when  a  Hebraic  firm  engaged  in  that  business  sought  to 
reach  him  and  influence  a  change.  He  thereupon  sent  this 
characteristic  telegraphic  message  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
at  Washington:  "Please  relieve  me  of  this  command  at  once; 
I  am  offered  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  gold  to  raise 
the  blockade  on  cotton,  and  that  is  damned  near  my  price. 
CROCKER." 

General  Sherman  was  a  military  man  above  all  else  and 
on  one  occasion  his  talk  turned  on  the  battle  of  New  Orleans. 
The  treaty  of  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  this  Govern- 
ment was  signed  at  Ghent  on  December  24,  1814,  and  in  ignor- 
ance of  this,  or  it  may  be  awaiting  official  notification,  General 
Jackson  fought  this  battle  on  January  8,  1815.  We  had  botii 
been  over  the  ground  and  knew  from  reading  history  and  per- 
sonal knowledge  these  historic  facts:  That  prior  to  the  bat- 
tle, the  pirate  Lafitte,  with  from  three  to  five  hundred  men  in 
his  command,  was  located  at  Barrataria,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  had  refused  the  offices  and  $30,000  in  gold 
tendered  him  by  the  British,  but  finally  agreed  with  Jackson 
that  he  and  his  men  should  participate  in  that  battle  upon  the 
express  agreement  that  Lafitte  and  his  men  should  be  fully 
pardoned  for  all  their  offences  against  the  law,  and  the  Negro 
slaves  with  him  freed ;  that  in  Lafitte's  command  were  a  num- 
ber of  Negro  slaves,  then  lawfully  owned  by  persons  living 
along  the  Gulf  coast;  that  in  this  battle  Lafitte  and  his  men 
held  the  river  front  and  there  rendered  valuable  services  to 
the  American  cause;  that  from  the  date  of  that  victory  there 
had  always  lived,  south  of  Canal  Street,  at  New  Orleans,  a 
colony  of  free  blacks,  who  were  still  known  as  "the  Lafitte 
niggers,"  all  spoke  the  French,  and  were  regarded  as  "aris- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  165 

tocracy"  among  the  Negroes  of  the  South.  But  the  two  facts 
neither  of  us  knew  were:  How  or  when  or  by  whom  these 
pirates  were  pardoned  and  these  slaves  were  freed.  After 
Sherman's  death  in  1891,  I  learned  that  at  the  earnest  request 
of  General  Jackson,  coupled  with  the  unanimous  recommend- 
ation of  the  Louisiana  Legislature,  these  pirates  were  fully 
pardoned  by  President  Madison  by  his  proclamation  of  Feb- 
ruary 6,  1815 ;  while  in  his  royal  way  Jackson  by  proclamation 
then  assumed  the  right  to  free  "the  Lafitte  niggers."  He  had 
previously  there  suspended  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  and  pro- 
claimed and  enforced  military  law  as  the  Commander-in-chief 
of  the  New  Orleans  District,  and  whether  he  had  lawful  or 
constitutional  warrant  for  his  acts  was  immaterial  to  him; 
he  had  and  exercised  the  power,  and  that  always  ended  the 
question  with  Jackson.  And  in  passing  it  may  be  noted  that 
"by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  [him]  vested  as  Commander- 
in-chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy,"  Lincoln  later  did  the  same 
thing  in  and  by  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  effective  Jan- 
uary i,  1863. 

At  the  San  Francisco  National  Encampment  of  the  G.  A. 
R.  in  1886,  General  Sherman,  as  the  guest  of  honor,  rode  in 
an  open  carriage  at  the  head  of  the  staff  in  the  great  parade. 
Among  the  many  aides-de-camp  on  horseback  were  General 
John  A.  Logan  and  myself,  and  we  were  in  the  saddle  for 
over  eight  hours.  Finally  the  Commanded-in-chief  gave  the 
order,  "Head  of  column  to  the  right,"  and  the  procession  filed 
out  into  Market  Street,  and  with  the  staff,  together  with 
Sherman,  we  were  lined  up  on  the  sidewalk  there  to  review 
the  "boys."  How  many  were  in  line  I  don't  recollect  now,  but 
we  had  sixty-three  bands  and  drum-corps  and  the  procession 
seemed  endless.  Knowing  that  the  General  had  a  holy  hate  of 
the  air  which  commemorated  his  great  march  to  the  sea,  unless 
it  bubbled  up  in  a  natural  and  easy  sort  of  way,  Logan  and  I, 


166  RECOLLECTIONS 

in  a  spirit  of  sheer  cussedness,  selected  an  alert-looking  young 
fellow  who  didn't  know  Sherman  from  a  goat,  sent  him  down 
around  the  corner,  and  gravely  instructed  him  to  present  to 
every  band-master  as  the  bands  came  along  the  compliments 
of  General  Sherman  and  say  that  the  General  was  on  the  re- 
viewing-stand  just  up  on  Market  Street,  loved  the  old  war- 
song,  and  would  esteem  it  a  personal  compliment  if  this  par- 
ticular band  as  it  swung  around  that  corner  would  strike  up 
"Marching  through  Georgia."  No  scheme  ever  worked  better. 
As  they  rounded  that  corner  every  one  of  the  sixty-three 
bands,  in  a  whole  -  souled,  hearty  way,  played  "Marching 
through  Georgia"  from  there  on  past  our  stand  and  far  up 
the  street.  The  dear  old  unsuspecting  General  at  first  thought 
it  just  happened  so;  but  by  the  time  a  dozen  or  so  of  them 
had  passed,  all  working  overtime  on  his  pet  aversion,  he  began 
to  suspect  some  design  and  was  furious.  Many  of  the  "boys" 
recognized  the  grim  chief  and  broke  ranks  to  go  up  and  shake 
his  hand;  but  with  eyes  flashing  fire,  arms  folded  across  his 
breast,  head  uncovered,  the  General  stood  in  his  carriage,  in 
vain  urged  them  to  go  back  into  ranks  and  remember  that  they 
were  still  soldiers,  and  sternly  refused  to  shake  the  hand  of 
anyone.  The  air  was  blue  about  that  carriage  for  a  time,  and 
then  there  was  silence — the  General's  choice  vocabulary  and 
fancy  cuss-words  were  not  equal  to  the  occasion !  Nearly  dying 
to  scream  with  laughter,  Logan  and  I  tried  to  look  virtuous, 
guileless,  and  dignified,  and  succeeded  so  well  that  the  Gen- 
eral never  suspected  either.  Well  toward  the  tail  end  of  the 
parade  a  respectable-looking  veteran  persisted  in  his  earnest 
efforts  to  shake  the  General's  hand.  No  amount  of  either  per- 
suasion or  profanity  availed,  and  with  .arms  still  tightly  folded, 
the  General  at  last  said :  "I  suppose  you  are  another  01  the 
damned  boys  that  served  in  my  command?"  The  veteran 
answered:  "Unfortunately,  General,  I  served  in  the  Eastern 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  167 

Army,  and  never  clapped  eyts  on  you  until  right  now."  Anger, 
disgust,  and  the  music  were  all  forgotten,  the  General's  face 
beamed  with  pleasure,  and  his  good  right  hand  extended  as  he 
said :  "Shake,  my  good  man,  shake ;  you  are  the  first  old  soldier 
I  Ve  struck  since  coming  to  the  Pacific  Coast  that  didn't  say  he 
marched  to  the  sea  with  me." 

General  Sherman  had  opinions  and  theories  of  his  own 
upon  every  public  question,  and  these  he  stated  and  maintained 
with  unusual  clearness,  strength,  and  ability.  No  one  could 
consider  his  unfortunate  controversy  with  Secretary  of  War 
Edwin  M.  Stanton  without  reaching  the  conclusion  that  the 
General  was  right.  Then,  I  recall  now  the  vigor  he  threw  intc 
his  theory  at  the  war's  close  that  the  American  slaves  should 
first  be  educated  at  the  expense  of  that  Government  which 
had  held  them  and  their  ancestors  in  bondage  from  earliest 
times,  and  then,  and  not  before,  we  should  grant  them  the 
right  to  vote;  nor  how  he  finally  persuaded  his  distinguished 
brother,  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  to  then  see  that  great  ques- 
tion his  way.  In  addition  to  this,  he  then  advocated  the  im- 
mediate recognition  of  every  seceded  State,  and  such  other 
acts  of  conciliation  as  would  have  brought  the  young  men  of 
the  South  into  the  Republican  party.  That  Henry  Wilson, 
Benjamin  Wade,  and  others  of  their  way  of  thinking  mapped 
out  and  the  party  leaders  shaped  up  a  different  policy  was  no 
fault  of  William  T.  Sherman. 

The  last  long  talk  I  had  with  the  General  was  an  after- 
noon spent  with  him  at  his  Garrison  Avenue  home  in  St.  Louis 
not  long  before  he  left  that  city.  No  one  that  I  have  known 
was  his  equal  in  interesting  reminiscences  of  a  long  and  event- 
ful life;  and  few  excelled  him  in  accurate  knowledge  of  tKe 
current  history,  literature,  and  philisophy  of  his  time.  Indeed, 
he  always  reminded  me  of  great  Emerson's  graphic  characteri- 


168  RECOLLECTIONS 

zation  of  greater  Shakespeare,  in  that  he  "was  a  full  man  who 
loved  to  talk." 

JOSEPH  B.  COGHLAN,  The  Navy.  This  hero  of  the  deep 
was  born  just  the  day  before  I  was,  retired  from  the  Navy  as 
a  rear  admiral  on  account  of  the  age  limit,  and  suddenly  died 
in  New  York,  on  December  5,  1908.  In  his  boyhood  he  en- 
tered the  service  of  his  country  on  the  water,  and  I  on  land ; 
he  stuck  to  his  text  and  came  out  with  high  honors ;  I  switched 
to  the  law;  but  in  all  the  years  we  were  friends  and  I  don't 
recall  the  day  when  I  was  not  both  fond  and  proud  of  Joe 
Coghlan. 

A  captain  in  the  U.  S.  Navy  then,  and  in  command  of 
the  good  ship  "Raleigh"  under  Admiral  George  Dewey,  Coghlan 
participated  in  the  battle  and  capture  of  the  city  of  Manila, 
P.  I.,  in  1898.  He  told  me  that  for  eight  days  prior  to  this 
naval  engagement  Dewey  called  to  his  flagship  every  naval 
officer  in  his  squadron  and  together  these  officers  studied  the 
official  maps,  charts,  and  plans  of  Manila  Bay  and  daily  con- 
ferred as  to  the  best  mode  of  attacking  the  Spanish  position; 
all  this  was  by  them  finally  agreed  upon  and  the  plan  of  attack 
was  upon  the  joint  judgment  of  all  these  officers ;  but  the  honor 
of  the  first  shot  there  fired  must  rest  upon  the  direct  command 
of  Captain  Coghlan,  of  the  "Raleigh." 

Not  long  after  the  Manila  affair,  Captain  and  Mrs.  Cogh- 
lan were  our  guests,  as  they  often  were,  at  our  home  here 
in  Kansas  City.  In  driving  them  out  to  the  house,  I  offered 
to  give  them  any  kind  of  a  time  they  desired;  if  they  craved 
newspaper  notoriety,  I  proposed  to  have  the  Captain  inter- 
viewed by  every  paper  in  town ;  if  society,  then  the  house  and 
grounds  should  be  filled  with  people;  but  if  a  quiet,  homelike 
time  were  desired,  then  they  might  roll  upon  the  green  grass 
at  will.  Both  said:  "For  Heaven's  sake,  let  us  have  a  quiet, 
restful  visit,"  and  they  had  it. 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  '1€9 

Before  coming  westward  and  at  a  private  dinner  in  his 
honor  in  New  York,  Captain  Coghlan,  in  response  to  the  many 
felicitous  talks,  had  repeated  his  famous  "Hoch !  der  Kaiser !" 
and  while  its  effect  was  to  play  the  wild  with  him  later,  yet 
Mrs.  Coghlan  was  proud  of  his  elocution,  as  well  she  might 
have  been,  and  urged  him,  as  we  all  did,  to  repeat  that  recita- 
tion at  breakfast  and  then  at  luncheon ;  but  Joe  steadily  refused 
to  do  so.  The  Captain  explained  to  me  that  in  his  New  York 
response  he  fully  intended  to  give  his  hearers  "Dot  Devvey 
man  will  git  you  if  you  don't  look  oudt,"  but  when  he  came 
to  that  part  of  his  speech  he  couldn't  recall  a  word  of  it.  After 
pawing  the  air  for  a  time  in  his  vain  efforts  to  recall  "Dot 
Dewey  man,"  his  mind  accidentally  stumbled  on  the  other  and 
he  repeated  it  instead  of  the  poem  intended.  But  I  knew  my 
man  and  proceeded  in  a  most  deliberate  way  to  get  him  in  the 
proper  frame  of  mind  for  the  repetition  of  this  poem.  Then 
I  quietly  filled  the  parlors  with  sympathizing  neighbors  and 
at  the  right  moment  called  on  Captain  Joe  for  his  speech  and 
"Hoch !  der  Kaiser !"  No  one  there  will  ever  again  listen  to 
a  more  graphic  or  dramatic  effort.  Here  it  is : 

HOCH  !  DER  KAISER! 

Der  Kaiser  auf  der  Vaterland 
Und  Gott  on  high  all  dings  command — 
Ve  two  !     Ach  !     Don'd  you  understand  ? 
Meinself — und  Gott ! 

He  reigns  in  Heafen,  und  always  shall; 
Und  mein  own  empire  don'd  vay  small. 
Ein  noble  bair,  I  clinks,  you  call 
Meinself — und  Gott ! 

Vile  some  men  sing  der  power  divine 
Mine  soldiers  sing  "Die  Wacht  am  Rhein," 
Und  drink  der  health  in  Rheinisch  wine 
Of  me — und  Gott ! 


170  RECOLLECTIONS 

Dere  's  France,  she  swaggers  all  aroundt, 
She  's  ausgespielt — dot  's  oudt. 
To  much,  methinks,  she  don't  amoundt; 
Myself— und  Gott! 

She  vill  not  dare  to  fight  again, 
But  if  she  should.  I  '11  show  her  blain 
Dot  Elsass  und  (in  French)  Lorraine 
Are  mine — by  Gott ! 

Dere  's  Grandma  dinks  she  's  nicht  small  beer, 
Midt  Boers  und  such  she  'd  interfere ; 
She  '11  learn  none  owns  dis  hemisphere 
But  me — und  Gott ! 

She  dinks,  good  frau,  some  ships  she  's  got, 
Und  soldiers  midt  der  scarlet  goat. 
Ach  !    We  could  knock  dem — pouf  !  like  dot, 
Myself — midt  Gott ! 

In  dimes  of  peace  brebare  for  wars. 
I  bear  der  spear  und  helm  of  Mars, 
Und  care  not  for  den  tousand  czars, 
Myself— undt  Gott! 

In  fact,  I  humor  efry  vhim, 
With  aspect  dark  und  visage  prim ; 
Gott  pulls  mit  me  und  I  mit  Him, 
Myself — und  Gott ! 

The  recitation  of  these  lines  got  his  Government  and  fin- 
ally Captain  Coghlan  into  serious  trouble  with  Germany,  and 
to  appease  the  wrath  of  offended  dignity  the  Department 
•  "Dreyfussed"  Coghlan  to  the  Puget  Sound  Naval  Station,  not 
far  from  Bremerton,  Washington.  In  a  number  of  long  let- 
ters I  received  from  him  while  there  he  never  wrote  a  word 
of  complaint,  but  between  the  lines  those  who  knew  the  man 
as  I  did  could  detect  cuss-words  as  long  as  your  finger  in  every 
sentence  employed. 

While  the  Captain  and  Mrs.  Coghlan  were  visiting  us  that 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  171 

summer  day,  our  second  daughter,  Mrs.  Genevieve  McDougal 
Turner,  with  her  two  young  children,  paid  her  respects  to 
them.  She  suddenly  died  at  the  Turner  cottage  in  this  city 
soon  after  they  left  us,  of  spinal  meningitis,  on  September 
25,  1899.  Naturally  I  wrote  my  old  friend  of  this  irreparable 
loss  and  from  him  and  his  wife  came  this  touching  response: 
"We  were  both  horrified  over  the  great  bereavement  which 
overtook  you  and  your  wife.  We  felt  as  if  one  of  our  own 
had  gone,  for  we  knew  and  loved  your  sweet  Genevieve.  At 
such  times  words  are  meaningless,  except  where  they  can  be 
accompanied  by  the  friendly  eye  and  grasp  of  the  hand,  to 
convey  the  consolation  one  so  longs  to  give." 

WILLIAM  B.  COMPTON,  Harrisonburg,  Virginia.  This 
able  and  successful  lawyer  of  the  Old  Dominion  passed  to  the 
Court  of  the  final  Judge  of  all  about  1897.  But  I  here  speak 
of  him  as  a  Confederate  soldier,  not  as  a  lawyer. 

He  was  born  in  Baltimore,  but  reared  in  my  native  county 
of  Marion,  was  already  a  young  lawyer,  intensely  Southern, 
while  his  father  was  a  merchant  and  a  Union  man. 

Early  in  'May,  1861,  I  attended  "the  Big  Muster"  at 
Barracksville,  in  that  county,  and  was  present  when  young 
Compton,  my  elder  brother,  John  Reger  McDougal,  and  o  her 
enthusiastic  secession  boys,  enlisted  in  the  Confederate  Army, 
in  the  company  then  being  recruited  by  William  P.  Thompson, 
who  was  the  prosecuting  attorney  of  Marion  County. 

At  this  time  my  young  Confederate  friend  was  deeply  in 
love  with  and  engaged  to  be  married  to  Miss  Kate  Kerr,  who 
was  the  daughter  of  William  Kerr,  the  high  sheriff  of  the 
county,  living  out  at  the  edge  of  town.  In  his  efforts  to  come 
within  our  lines,  mainly  to  pay  his  devotions  to  Miss  Kate,  and 
while  he  was  a  Confederate  soldier,  young  Compton  was  twice 
captured  by  the  captain  of  my  company. 

His  first  capture  was  in  September,  1861.    Our  company 


172  RECOLLECTIONS 

was  then  stationed  at  the  long  bridge  over  the  Monongahela 
River  just  above  Fairmont,  and  Captain  John  H.  Showalter 
was  in  command.  The  Kerr  family  suspected  that  Black  Ben 
and  other  Negro  servants  (but  in  truth  two  of  the  neighbors, 
Zebulon  Musgrave  and  Otis  Watson)  reported  to  Captain  Sho- 
walter one  night  their  belief  that  Compton  was  then  at  the 
Kerr  house,  a  mile  from  camp,  and  I  was  detailed  as  one  of 
the  squad  to  search  for  and  capture  him.  Under  the  Captain's 
command  we  soon  marched  to  and  surrounded  the  Kerr  home 
and  demanded  the  surrender  of  Compton.  The  ladies  said  they 
knew  nothing  of  him  or  his  whereabouts  and  readily  gave  full 
permission  to  search  the  house,  which  was  done.  Then  our 
Captain  ordered  George  K.  Mallory  and  myself  to  open  a  huge 
mahogany  wardrobe  with  our  bayonets ;  that  press  was  opened 
and,  pale  as  a  ghost,  there  stood  Billy  Compton !  At  this  junct- 
ure, with  flashing  eyes  and  loosened  tongue,  Miss  Kate  at- 
tacked our  lieutenant,  Joseph  N.  Pierpoint,  with  all  the  bat- 
teries of  her  withering,  scornful,  sarcastic,  wrathful,  vocabu- 
lary, and  such  a  tongue-lashing  as  she  then  gave  him  I  have 
never  heard  up  to  this  date.  To  me  she  seemed  about  seven 
feet  high,  and  I  thought  her  the  most  beautiful  woman  tigress 
of  earth.  Poor  Joe  Pierpoint  had  to  stand  there  and  take  it 
all.  He  died  in  the  war,  in  1863,  and  I  never  knew  why  or 
how  it  all  came  about  until  Kate's  young  lady  daughter  told 
me,  at  Harrisonburg,  in  1898,  that  this  terrific  excoriation 
grew  out  of  the  fact  that  Compton  and  Pierpoint  had  been 
rivals  for  the  hand  of  Miss  Kate  up  to  that  night.  We  marched 
back  to  our  camp  with  our  prisoner  of  war;  he  slept  in  the 
tent  with  his  old  friend,  our  captain ;  he  was  soon  taken  over  to 
the  military  prison  at  Wheeling  and  got  back  into  the  Con- 
federate service,  but  just  how  I  do  not  know. 

Compton's  next  capture  was  made  by  our  same  captain 
and  alone,  in  the  early  spring  of  1862.    The  latter  was  travel- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  1  73 

ing  by  train  on  the  B.  &  O.  Railroad  from  Grafton  down  to 
Fairmont,  when  a  lone  man  boarded  the  train  at  Nuzum's 
Mills.  The  stranger  had  his  hat  drawn  over  his  eyes,  and 
was  apparently  dressed  in  full  citizen's  clothes.  Showalter  at 
first  suspected  his  identity,  and  then,  from  his  manner  in  light- 
ing and  holding  his  cigar,  knew  that  it  must  be  Compton,  and 
promptly  placed  him  under  arrest.  Upon  Compton's  person 
were  later  found  a  commission  from  the  Confederate  Sec- 
retary of  War  authorizing  him  to  recruit  a  battery  of  artillery 
within  our  lines,  together  with  a  complete  plan  of  the  intended 
action.  Then  Billy  was  going  back  to  revisit  Kate !  Compton 
was  temporarily  held  as  a  spy  at  the  old  Kearsley  house  in 
Fairmont.  There  I  saw  and  talked  to  him  on  the  following 
morn.ng.  He  was  by  that  time  the  same  polished,  suave,  care- 
fully dressed  young  lawyer  I  had  known  in  the  past,  while 
his  superb  white  teeth  gleamed  as  of  old,  but  beneath  the 
soldier  bronze  of  war  his  pale  face  and  serious  talk  clearly 
betrayed  his  critical  position  as  a  possible  spy.  He  firmly  be- 
lieved his  days  were  numbered,  mainly  because  of  the  military 
papers  found  on  him,  and  told  me  that  nothing  short  of  execu- 
tive clemency  would  save  him.  This  time  Compton  was  trans- 
ported to  and  confined  in  Fort  McHenry,  near  Baltimore. 
There  he  was  soon  tried  by  court-martial  as  a  spy,  convicted, 
and  sentenced  to  be  executed  by  hanging  on  a  day  fixed.  In 
his  efforts  to  procure  a  mitigation  of  this  sentence,  Compton 
had  his  captor,  Showalter,  come  to  his  prison  cell,  and  there 
pointed  out  his  scaffold  and  said  he  had  seen  that  scaffold 
erected  and  had  heard  every  nail  driven  into  it  from  the  grat- 
ing of  his  cell  window ;  but  the  papers  found  on  him  were  fatal 
and  there  seemed  no  hope.  About  this  time,  and  by  Sho- 
walter's  assistance,  Compton's  old  father  and  Governor  Fran- 
cis II  Picrpont  journeyed  from  Fairmont  to  Washington  and 
there  laid  all  his  case  directly  before  President  Lincoln.  Heed- 


174  RECOLLECTIONS 

ing  their  earnest  appeals,  the  great  heart  of  the  President  was 
so  touched  that  he  then  granted  to  Compton  an  indefinite 
respite.  Soon  after  this  Compton  escaped  from  his  prison 
and  swam  from  the  fort  across  the  Patapsco  River,  over  a 
mile  and  a  quarter  wide  at  that  point,  to  the  city  of  Baltimore, 
where  he  had  old  schoolmates  and  tried  and  true  Southern 
friends.  These  welcomed  him  with  open  arms  as  one  raised 
from  the  dead,  furnished  him  clothes  and  money,  and  finally 
helped  him  to  get  back  into  the  Confederate  Army.  There  he 
fought  out  the  war  and  was  in  at  the  death,  surrendering  with 
Lee  at  Appomattox. 

Soon  after  the  war  Captain  William  B.  Compton  and 
Miss  Kate  Kerr  were  married  and  settled  and  reared  their 
family  at  Harrisonburg.  Here  he  became  as  conspicuous  in 
law  as  he  had  been  as  a  Southern  soldier.  In  the  summer  of 
1898  I  spent  a  week  visiting  with  my  old  friends,  the  John- 
stons, of  Washington,  D.  C.,  at  Harrisonburg,  and  in  company 
with  my  life-long  friend,  the  Judge,  called  and  there  spent  an 
evening  with  Kate,  who  was  then  the  widow  of  my  old  friend. 
We  had  not  met  since  that  night  at  her  father's  home  at  Fair- 
mont, in  1 86 1,  and  I  was  somewhat  surprised  to  see  her  IOOK- 
ing  so  young  and  fresh  and  small. 

ROBERT  HENRY  HUNT,  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  was  born 
in  County  Kerry,  Ireland,  and  near  the  classic  lakes  of  "ever 
fair  Killarney,"  long  ago ;  coming  to  Chicago  in  his  youth,  he 
was  then  a  great  favorite  of  and  called  "my  boy"  by  Abraham 
Lincoln ;  he  drifted  to  Kansas  in  its  Territorial  days,  there  en- 
listed as  a  private  soldier  early  in  1861,  and  was  mustered  out 
with  the  rank  of  colonel  of  the  I5th  Kansas  at  the  war's  close 
in  1865. 

While  he  served  in  the  Corinth  campaign  with  distinction 
and  courage,  yet  the  greater  part  of  his  military  life  was  passed 
in  the  many  conflicts  of  the  "Army  of  the  Border"  in  Missouri, 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  175 

Kansas,  and  Arkansas.  As  chief  of  ordnance  and  artillery 
on  the  staff  of  General  S.  R.  Curtis,  Colonel  Hunt  particularly 
distinguished  himself  in  two  conflicts:  First  on  an  expedition 
against  hostile  Indians  in  the  summer  of  1864,  when  they 
stampeded  a  vast  herd  of  buffaloes  out  near  Fort  Kearney,  in 
Kansas,  and  these  maddened  monarchs  of  the  plains  in  un- 
counted thousands  swept  down  upon  and  threatened  to  trample 
beneath  their  feet  and  annihilate  the  entire  army.  Just  when 
despair  seemed  to  seize  all  others,  Colonel  Hunt  opened  a 
vigorous  fire  upon  the  buffaloes  with  his  artillery,  deflected 
their  wild  course,  and  saved  the  day  and  the  command  from 
utter  destruction.  The  second  was  at  the  final  battle  out 
here  at  Wesport,  now  a  part  of  Kansas  City,  on  October  23, 
1864.  Hunt  commanded  a  park  of  artillery  of  twenty-three 
cannon ;  and  in  speaking  of  that  battle  and  its  results,  only  a 
short  time  before  his  death,  General  Jo  O.  Shelby,  who  then 
commanded  a  division  in  the  Confederate  Army  under  Gen- 
eral Sterling  Price,  said  to  me:  "During  the  entire  battle, 
I  often  noticed  a  dashing  artillery  officer,  riding  a  splendid 
white  horse,  who  seemed  to  be  all  over  the  field  at  once;  his 
guns  played  sad  havoc  with  our  boys,  but  I  am  glad  we  didn't 
kill  him,  for  he  is  now  your  good  friend  and  mine — Colonel 
R.  H.  Hunt." 

Colonel  Hunt  came  to  Kansas  City  at  the  close  of  the  war 
and  this  was  his  home  the  rest  of  his  life.  Here,  as  an  active, 
forceful,  aggressive,  and  progressive  citizen,  he  amassed  a 
fortune  and  left  the  strong  imprint  of  his  intelligent  energy 
on  most  of  our  public  affairs.  He  was  elected  Mayor  of  Kan- 
sas City  in  1872,  later  organized  and  commanded  the  7th 
Regiment,  M.  N.  G. ;  was  the  genial,  courteous,  and  attentive 
host  of  the  Kansas  City  Casino,  at  the  St.  Louis  World's  Fair, 
in  1904;  and  finally  was  the  quartermaster  at  the  Soldier's 
Home,  near  Leavenworth,  when  the  end  canie  in  1908. 


176  RECOLLECTIONS 

As  Mayor  of  the  city,  Hunt  saw  that  our  trade  and  busi- 
ness of  one  railroad  was  going  to  rival  Missouri  River  towns, 
and  inaugurated  a  movement,  which  proved  successful,  to  bring 
the  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe  to  our  doors.  Through 
his  earnest  efforts,  too,  the  systematic  plundering  of  our  city 
offices  was  stopped,  and  a  new  system  of  bookkeeping  and 
accounts  was  established,  which  is  in  force  today. 

Close  observation,  extensive  travel  on  both  sides  of  the 
•water,  and  careful  reading  had  made  Colonel  Hunt  a  most 
interesting  companion,  and  together  we  often  visited  in  many 
of  our  American  cities.  Just  after  its  completion,  we  were 
once  strolling  through  and  admiring  that  wondrous  exposition 
of  architectural  skill  and  decorative  beauty  found  only  in  the 
Library  of  Congress  at  Washington,  when  a  turn  brought  us 
face  to  face  with  a  mosaic,  which  made  in  memory  a  picture 
to  be  gazed  upon  once  and  worn  in  memory  forever,  and  with 
uncovered  head  I  involuntarily  quoted,  "Mine  eyes  have  seen 
the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord."  The  scene,  the  occasion, 
and  the  quotation  made  so  profound  an  impression  on  his  mind 
that  the  Colonel  never  tired  of  recalling  the  incident  and  re- 
peated the  story  in  all  its  details  the  last  time  we  ever  met. 
For  many  long  years  we  were  neighbors  and  friends,  and 
even  now  I  find  myself  wondering  if  it  can  be  possible  that 
I  shall  never  again  see  his  erect,  manly  form,  note  his  elastic, 
soldierly  step,  listen  to  his  wise  words,  or  hear  his  ringing 
laugh. 

BENJAMIN  F.  KELLEY,  Wheeling,  West  Virginia.  The 
memory  of  this  good  man  and  good  officer  will  long  be  re- 
spected, honored,  and  even  revered  by  every  one  who  reads  and 
understands  the  history  of  the  men  of  the  big  war.  He  re- 
cruited and  was  commissioned  by  the  Secretary  of  War  direct, 
as  colonel  of  the  First  Regiment  Virginia  Volunteer  Infantry 
(Union),  and,  under  the  orders  of  General  McClellan,  moved 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  177 

his  regiment  from  Wheeling  eastward  over  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  Railroad,  on  May  27,  1861.  Company  A  of  this  regi- 
ment, under  the  command  of  Captain  Britt,  was  then  halted 
and  reconstructed  two  railroad  bridges  destroyed  by  the  Con- 
federates, and  known  in  history  as  the  "Burnt  Bridges,"  in 
my  county,  and  not  far  from  my  father's  home,  while  Colonel 
Kelley  and  the  rest  of  his  men  at  once  pushed  on  to  Fairmont, 
Grafton,  and  then  to  Philippi,  in  Barbour  County,  Virginia, 
where  he  fought  and  won  the  first  real  battle  of  the  war  on 
June  3,  1861,  and  was  there  severely  wounded.  He  was  pro- 
moted to  brigadier  and  then  to  major-general,  and  closed 
his  public  career  as  the  superintendent  in  charge  of  the  public 
grounds  at  Hot  Springs  in  Arkansas. 

In  history,  as  well  as  in  fact,  General  Kelley  enjoyed 
many  unusual  distinctions :  He  was  the  first  colonel  of  a 
Lnion  regiment  raised  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line;  com- 
manded in  the  first  battle  of  the  war;  was  the  first  Union  officer 
wounded  in  that  war;  was  the  only  brigadier-general  on  our 
side  who  while  holding  that  rank  commanded  a  department; 
and,  most  of  all,  was  the  only  officer  under  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  who  was  never  once  defeated  in  a  skirmish,  maneuver, 
movement,  or  battle.  At  his  dying  request,  in  1892,  his  battle- 
scarred  body  was  laid  with  the  honors  of  war  in  Arlington 
Cemetery,  nearby  Washington,  so  "that  he  might  rest  at  last 
among  the  soldiers." 

While  Kelley 's  regiment  marched  near  our  home,  and  his 
was  the  first  body  of  our  troops  at  Farmington  and  Fairmont, 
yet  my  first  sight  of  him  was  at  Camp  Carlisle,  on  Wheeling 
Island,  in  August,  1861.  Our  company  of  recruits  was  there 
drilling,  and  his  old  regiment,  which  was  affectionately  char- 
acterized as  the  "Rough  and  Ready  Regiment,"  came  to  that 
camp  to  be  mustered  out  of  the  three-months  service.  Pale, 
wan,  still  sick  from  his  serious  wound  at  Philippi,  General 


178  RECOLLECTIONS 

Kelley  drove  over  from  the  city  in  an  open  barouche  to  see 
and  bid  his  "boys"  a  soldier's  farewell.  Just  before  Kelley  got 
into  camp,  Captain  Britt  of  his  regiment  had  drummed  out 
of  camp  and  the  Army  a  member  of  his  company,  and  the 
scene  is  now  before  me  as  the  fallen  comrade  was  marched 
to  the  big  gate  to  "The  Rogues'  March,"  made  to  go  through, 
and,  with  his  saber  raised  high,  the  big  captain  solemnly  said : 
"Anthony  Craig,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  the 
captain  of  your  company,  I  hereby  drum  and  muster  you  out 
of  the  service  of  the  United  States,"  and  away  went  the 
dishonorably  discharged  Craig,  while  Britt  marched  his  com- 
pany back  to  quarters.  To  me  all  this  was  then  very  solemn 
and  real ;  but  war  educates,  and  it  was  not  long  until  I  learned 
that  a  captain  had  no  such  authority. 

Early  in  December,  1863,  General  Kelley  and  I  both  hap- 
pened to  be  in  Wheeling.  He  was  then  planning  the  histor- 
ic raid  of  General  W.  W.  Averill  from  Grafton  through  the 
Virginia  mountains,  known  as  "the  Salem  raid,"  and  wished 
a  secret  dispatch  and  marching  orders  communicated  to  Gen- 
eral Averill  that  night.  He  knew  that  I  intended  to  return 
to  my  post  at  Clarksburg  the  following  day,  and  at  his  order 
I  was  made  the  courier  to  bear  the  dispatch  and  order.  At 
the  B.  &  O.  depot  a  special  train,  consisting  of  engine,  tender, 
and  one  coach,  stood  waiting  with  steam  up.  The  railroad 
tracks  were  cleared,  the  trainmen  instructed  to  make  a  quick 
run,  and  away  we  flew.  From  Wheeling  to  Grafton  was 
ninety-nine  miles  and  we  made  the  distance  in  ninety-six  min- 
utes !  In  going  over  that  rough  track  and  rounding  the  sharp 
curves,  the  speed  was  so  rapid  and  the  track  so  uneven  that 
many  of  the  seats  in  the  coach  were  torn  loose,  the  ice-water 
cooler  thrown  to  the  floor,  and  had  the  grim  conductor  jumped 
off,  I  am  sure  I  should  have  followed.  It  was  a  most  terrific 
night  ride,  and  when  I  delivered  at  Grafton  the  order  for  the 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  179 

Salem  raid  to  Averill,  no  one  was  so  glad  as  I  that  it  was  all 
over. 

In  April  and  May  of  1864,  while  I  was  stationed  at  New 
Creek,  we  had  in  our  second  separate  brigade,  along  with  a 
lot  of  three-years  volunteers,  nine  full  regiments  of  hundred- 
days  men,  not  especially  noted  for  their  righting  qualities. 
Captain  McNeil,  in  command  of  his  mounted  rangers,  made 
a  dash  across  the  Alleghanies  and  captured  our  outpost  at 
Piedmont,  only  six  miles  from  our  headquarters.  He  took 
in  twenty-four  enlisted  men  of  my  company,  burned  their  camp, 
bent  their  guns,  took  their  side-arms,  and  paroled  them;  he 
burned  the  B.  &  O.  round-house  and  shops,  and  captured  and 
burned  a  passenger-train,  but  when  he  found  the  express  car 
stored  with  boxes  of  good  things  to  eat  for  our  boys  at  the 
front,  to  his  everlasting  honor  as  a  soldier,  he  had  all  such 
supplies  loaded  into  a  box  car,  with  his  own  hand  wrote  on  it 
the  words,  "Private  property — hands  off.  JOHN  H.  McNEiL, 
Captain  C.  S.  A.,  Commanding,"  and  started  that  car  down  the 
railroad  grade  toward  our  camp.  He  had  destroyed  all  tele- 
graphic communication  both  ways,  and  that  car  coming  by  trac- 
tion within  our  picket  lines  at  New  Creek  furnished  us  our  first 
clew  to  the  raid  and  (he  proximity  of  the  enemy.  When  that 
car  loaded  by  McNeil  came  in,  a  large  force  of  our  men,  with 
three  cannons,  was  at  once  started  in  pursuit,  but  the  wily 
ranger  and  all  his  men  made  good  their  escape  through  moun- 
tain passes. 

A  word  of  digression  may  be  pardoned :  For  some  years 
prior  to  the  war  McNeil  was  a  prosperous  farmer  and  stock- 
raiser  up  in  Daviess  County,  Missouri,  and  spoke  for  the  Union 
until  a  young  son  of  his  was  killed  near  Lexington  under  cir- 
cumstances which  to  him  seemed  murder.  Then  he  changed; 
returning  to  his  old  home  6n  the  south  branch  of  the  Potoma?, 
he  there  reciuited  his  rangers.  His  company  and  ours  were 


180  RECOLLECTIONS 

much  on  detached  service  and  often  fronted  each  other  in 
battle.  Each  side  respected  the  rights  of  the  other  and  never 
mistreated  a  prisoner.  When  either  side  captured  a  squad  of 
the  other,  the  best  the  mess-chest  afforded  was  never  too  good 
for  the  prisoners.  When  Captain  McNeil  died  of  wounds  at 
Harrisonburg,  Virginia,  late  in  1864,  the  command  of  their 
company  fell  upon  the  worthy  shoulders  of  his  son,  Jesse  Mc- 
Neil, and  the  latter  made  a  most  daring  capture  of  our  Gen- 
erals Crook  and  Kelley  at  Cumberland,  Maryland,  soon  after 
taking  command.  After  the  war  the  McNeil  family  returned 
West  and  we  were  for  years  their  neighbors  and  friends  up 
in  north  Missouri. 

A  colonel  of  one  of  the  hundred-days  regiments  was 
drafted  back  at  his  home  in  Ohio  and  came  to  me  at  our  head- 
quarters one  morning  trembling  and  excited,  for  he  was  sure  he 
had  to  answer  that  call  and  serve  as  a  drafted  man.  It  took 
me  half  an  hour  to  convince  him  that  he  was  already  in  the 
service  of  Uncle  Sam,  was  commanding  his  regiment  at  New 
Creek,  and  didn't  have  to  obey  that  draft;  but  I  have  never 
seen  any  soldier  so  scared. 

At  that  time,  too,  Generals  McCausland  and  Jenkins,  of 
the  Confederate  forces,  were  hanging  around  our  flanks,  in 
command,  so  our  scouts  said,  of  large  forces  of  the  enemy,  and 
McNeil  and  his  men  had  joined  them.  So  our  people  naturally 
expected  an  attack  daily,  and  just  how  to  meet  it  was  the  ques- 
tion. General  Kelley,  then  in  command  of  the  department, 
came  up  from  Harper's  Ferry  and  was  in  constant  consulta- 
tion with  my  brigade  commander.  At  his  earnest  request, 
I  finally  became  his  acting  aide-de-camp  temporarily,  and 
was  placed  in  command  of  a  battalion  of  these  hundred-days 
men,  although  only  a  private  soldier.  Well,  as  a  youth,  I 
didn't  like  the  way  many  of  them  had  gotten  into  the  war 
game,  mainly  to  avoid  the  draft;  and  riding  a  splendid  white 


.i  FRIEXDS  181 

horse  and  with  a  red  sash  and  sword  furnished  me  by  Kelley, 
the  way  I  drilled  those  poor  devils  for  six  hours  every  day, 
and  marched  their  legs  nearly  off,  wasn't  slow.  Had  the 
looked-for  attack  come,  my  firm  purpose  was  to  compel  them 
to  either  cover  themselves  with  gore  and  glory  or  perish  in 
the  attempt !  It  is  probable  I  hoped  to  have  most  of  them  fall 
in  battle.  But  the  attack  was  not  made,  the  fight  never  came 
off,  and  my  opportunity  did  not  materialize.  That  was  the 
only  command  I  ever  had,  and  it  was  lucky  for  them  that  my 
men  of  those  few  days  didn't  have  to  go  into  battle. 

The  people  of  West  Virginia  will  erect  a  monument  to 
General  Kelley  next  summer  on  the  exact  spot  where  he  fell 
wounded  at  Philippi,  in  the  first  battle  of  the  Civil  War. 

FITZHUGH  LEE,  Virginia.  When  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
introducing  and  hearing  the  first  talk  of  two  such  illustrious 
heroes  of  the  lost  cause  as  Fitzhugh  Lee  and  Jo  O.  Shelby, 
quoted  in  my  recollections  of  Shelby,  as  in  a  pleasant  dream 
of  the  long  past  there  came  to  at  least  one  old  soldier  of  ti it- 
blue  a  vision  of  1861 — of  waving  plumes,  prancing  war-horses, 
bugle-calls,  army  tents,  soldiers  in  blue  and  gray — and  again 
silent  thanks  were  returned  to  the  God  of  battles  because  the 
command  of  which  I  had  been  a  member  never  once  fronted 
the  troops  of  either  of  the  great  Lees  on  the  soil  of  our  native 
State. 

But  to  get  back  to  Fitz:  While  visiting  at  the  home  of 
Aunt  Virlinda  Boggess  Atkinson,  on  Prince  Street  in  Alex- 
andria, Virginia,  early  in  the  spring  of  1866,  and  soon  after 
the  close  of  the  war,  I  there  met  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  while 
his  nephew,  General  Fitzhugh  Lee,  and  myself  for  about  ten 
days  there  occupied  the  same  big  room  in  the  old  mansion  of 
this  aunt.  Then,  as  al  ays,  Fitz  was  the  gallant,  soldierly 
gentleman,  and  in  the  autogrnp!i  albums  of  the  Alexandria 


182  RECOLLECTIONS 

belles  of  that  now  far-away  time  one  may  still  find  the  auto- 
graph of  this  Southern  hero.  He  always  graciously  and  laugh- 
ingly signed  his  name  this  way:  "Fitzhugh  Lee,  late  Major- 
General,  late  C.  S.  A."  From  his  demeanor,  one  would  never 
suspect  that  he  cared  a  rap  for  the  results  of  the  war ;  but  a 
more  genial,  whole-souled  gentleman  never  blessed  a  friend. 

Together,  Fitz  and  I  had  more  than  one  high  old  time 
with  the  lovely  girls  of  quaint,  historic  old  Alexandria,  and 
visited  many  of  its  points  of  interest.  One  lazy  summer  after- 
noon we  spent  in  ancient  St.  Paul's  Cemetery,  when  I  copied 
in  full  the  inscription  found  on  the  tomb  of  the  "Female  Stran- 
ger." This  I  submitted  to  Aunt  Virlinda  on  our  return  and 
questioned  her  as  to  all  that  was  known  at  Alexandria  of  the 
history  and  personal  characteristics  of  this  mysterious  woman. 
My  good  old  aunt  had  known  as  much  of  her  as  anyone 
there,  and  from  her  lips  I  then  took  elaborate  notes  of  the 
woman,  her  illness,  death,  and  burial.  A  lawyer  in  full  prac- 
tice always  errs  when  he  prints  a  sketch  over  his  own  name, 
for  the  people  generally  get  to  regard  him,  in  the  characteristic 
language  of  stalwart  Zach  Chandler,  as  "one  of  them  damn 
literary  fellers"  if  it  be  known  that  he  can  write  anything  but 
law.  So  many  years  later,  and  on  January  22,  1893,  I  wrote 
and  had  printed  in  the  Kansas  City  Journal  a  little  sketch, 
taken  from  these  old  notes,  containing  my  personal  reflections 
on  the  "Grave  of  the  Female  Stranger,"  and  there  simply  said 
this  sketch  was  "By  a  Virginian."  Well,  it  was  soon  stolen 
from  that  paper  and  reproduced  in  full  over  various  names  in 
many  Eastern  and  Southern  papers ;  but  I  never  said  a  word. 
How  could  I? 

While  Fitz  and  I  were  there,  I  clipped  from  some  local 
Virginia  newspaper  a  little  poem  that  had  the  right  ring  to  it, 
and  it  has  been  in  my  scrap-book  ever  since.  During  the  war 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  183 

an  English  gentleman  and  an  intense  Southern  sympathiz- 
er, known  in  private  life  as  Philip  Stanhope  Worsley,  but  to 
the  public  as  the  Earl  of  Derby,  wrote  and  printed  his  trans- 
lation of  Homer's  "Iliad,"  and  presented  a  copy  of  his  book  to 
General  R.  E.  Lee  in  February,  1866.  Lately  I  read  another 
book  on  the  "Life  and  Letters"  of  "Ole  Marse  Robert,"  con- 
taining an  alleged  copy  of  this  poem ;  but  so  many  errors  had 
crept  into  the  lines  that  I  here  print  it  in  full,  just  as  I  then 
found  it  in  that  local  paper: 

DERBY  TO  LEE. 

(The  following  lines  were  written  by  the  late  Earl  of 
Derby  on  the  fly-leaf  of  a  copy  of  his  translation  of  the  "Iliad/' 
presented  by  him  to  General  R.  E.  Lee.  They  are  a  touch- 
ing evidence  of  sympathy  and  appreciation  on  the  part  of  the 
scholarly  nobleman  who  was  aptly  styled  "The  Rupert  of  de- 
bate." The  "Ruperts"  of  the  nineteenth  century  were,  in 
spirit  at  least,  ranged  on  the  side  of  the  South.) 

The  grave  old  Bard  who  never  dies, 
Receive  him  in  our  native  tongue; 

I  send  thee,  but  with  weeping  eyes, 
The  story  that  he  sung. 

Thy  Troy  has  fallen — thy  dear  land 
Is  marred  beneath  the  spoiler's  heel; 

I  cannot  trust  my  trembling  hand 
To  write  the  grief  I  feel. 

Oh  home  of  tears!     But  let  her  bear 

This  blazon  to  the  end  of  time ; 
No  nation  rose  so  white  and  fair, 

None  fell  so  pure  of  crime. 

The  widow's  moan,  the  orphan's  wail, 
Are  round  thee ;  but  in  truth  be  strong  ; 

Eternal  right,  though  all  things  fail, 
Can  never  be  made  wrong. 


184  RECOLLECTIONS 

An  angel's  heart,  an  angel's  mouth 

(Not  Homer's),  could  alone  for  me 
Hymn  forth  the  great  Confederate  South, 
Virginia  first — then  Lee. 

Later  on,  and  early  in  1873,  we  two  again  met  at  the 
same  place  and  together  went  down  the  Potomac  from  Alex- 
andria to  Mcunt  Vernon.  General  Grant  was  then  our  Pres- 
ident, and  the  Modoc  War  had  been  raging  in  the  lava-beds 
of  the  Klamath  country,  in  California  and  Oregon,  for  a  long 
time ;  Captain  Jack,  of  that  band,  had  already  massacred  Gen 
eral  Canby  and  others,  and  the  wild  generally  was  being  played. 
Among  many  other  guests  on  the  return  trip,  we  met  Miss 
Nellie  the  President's  quick-witted  daughter.  In  a  talk  with 
her,  in  his  usual  gallant  and  debonair  way,  General  Fitz  Lee 
said:  "Miss  Nellie,  when  you  get  back  home,  kindly  present 
my  compliments  to  your  distinguished  father  and  say  to  him 
for  me,  that  if  he  will  commission  me  so  to  do,  and  place  in 
my  command  the  old  Black  Horse  Cavalry  of  the  South,  I 
will  at  once  go  out  West  with  my  men  and  will  either  capture 
or  kill  all  the  Modocs  in  the  lava-beds  within  forty-eight  hours 
after  our  arrival."  She  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  at  once 
replied:  "General,  you  are  at  once  the  most  generous  and 
impudent  ex-Confederate  soldier  whom  I  have  met ;  but  I  will 
not  deliver  your  message."  Both  laughed  heartily  and  the  in- 
cident closed. 

I  once  asked  Fitz  how  and  why  it  was  that  the  Confed- 
erates kept  on  fighting  for  over  a  year  after  the  world  realized 
that  the  Southern  cause  was  lost?  His  answer  was,  that  the 
leaders  who  dominated  the  South  were  nearly  all  Presbyterians, 
and  therefore  never  knew  when  they  were  licked  ! 

The  kindly  and  tactful  sending  of  Fitz  Lee  to  Cuba,  and 
later  making  him  a  major-general  in  the  Spanish- American 
War  in  1898,  will  always  be  appreciated  by  Virginians  as  one 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  185 

of  the  most  gracious  acts  of  President  McKinley.  The  world 
knows  how  well  he  fought  for  the  South,  and  will  not  soon 
forget  his  gallantry  in  the  later  brush ;  but  to  the  old  soldier 
it  was  always  a  bit  incongruous  to  think  of  Fitz  Lee  and  old 
Joe  Wheeler  as  wearing  the  blue  uniform  and  loyally  com- 
manding United  States  soldiers ;  yet  both  did  it  with  honor  and 
glory. 

The  last  letter  I  had  from  Fitz  Lee  came  to  me  not  long 
before  his  death  and  expressed  his  grateful  appreciation  for  my 
little  tribute  to  General  Shelby  and  himself.  His  best  friends 
never  claimed  that  Fitzhugh  Lee  was  the  greatest  of  his  name ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  in  peace,  as  in  war,  he  was  always  a  power 
to  be  reckoned  with ;  while  his  charm  was  that  with  a  smile  of 
satisfaction  he  seemed  to  take  a  positive  pleasure  in  both  say- 
ing and  doing  the  right  thing,  in  the  right  way  and  at  the  right 
time. 

JOSEPH  H.  McGEE,  Gallatin,  Missouri.  Was  born  in  Cler- 
mont  County,  Ohio,  July  6,  1821 ;  vividly  recalled  all  the  inci- 
dents of  the  night  "the  stars  fell"  there  in  November,  1833; 
learned  the  trade  of  a  tailor;  removed  to  Missouri  in  1837; 
recollected  the  facts  relating  to  the  "Mormon  War"  ;  the  organ- 
ization and  settlement  of  a  city  called  Adam-on-di-Ahman 
(the  grave  of  Adam)  northwest  of  Gallatin,  the  Gallatin  fight 
between  the  Mormons  and  the  Missourians  in  October,  1838, 
the  burning  of  the  then  little  town  and  the  capture  and  release 
of  himself  on  that  day;  the  personnel  of  the  Mormon  leaders, 
and  finally  the  flight  of  the  Danites  and  their  associates  in  the 
following  year ;  he  married,  went  to  California  for  gold  in  1850, 
and  returned  home  in  1852;  taught  school;  was  elected  and 
served  as  clerk  of  the  Daviess  County  Court,  and  when  first 
I  met  him  at  Gallatin  in  1866,  he  had  gallantly  served  through- 
out the  Civil  War  in  the  ist  M.  S.  M.  Cavalry  and  been  mus- 
tered out  with  the  rank  of  major. 


186  RECOLLECTIONS 

In  the  spring  of  1867  Governor  Thomas  C.  Fletcher  ap- 
pointed Major  McGee  as  the  first  Judge  of  the  Daviess  County 
Court  of  Common  Pleas,  just  authorized,  and  in  this  office  he 
served  till  the  fall  of  1868,  and  not  one  of  his  many  decisions 
in  all  that  time  was  ever  reversed  by  the  Supreme  Court.  He 
was  not  a  trained  lawyer,  and  knew  it  Many  a  time  I  heard 
him  say  to  strong,  able  men  at  the  bar  of  his  court :  "Gentlemen, 
your  arguments  are  unusually  good;  I  don't  pretend  to  know 
just  what  the  law  of  this  case  is;  but  I  do  know  what  justice 
requires,  and  that  I  will  do."  The  secret  of  his  judicial  success 
was  that  he  had  good  "horse  sense"  and  used  it.  In  his  many 
conferences  on  law,  business,  or  policies,  he  made  it  a  point  to 
remain  absolutely  silent  until  all  others  had  spoken;  then  his 
final  judgment,  after  mastering  the  theories  of  others,  was  in- 
variably sound.  So  he  became  known  as  the  settler  of  all  con- 
troversies, and  was  always  wise  and  sagacious.  Accustomed 
to  the  Old  Dominion  dignity  and  courtesy,  as  a  young  law 
student,  I  strolled  into  Judge  McGee's  court-room  at  his  first 
session  to  see  and  know  just  how  justice  was  there  adminis- 
tered. New  in  the  West,  and  not  up  on  its  free  and  easy  ways 
then,  I  was  first  surprised  to  see  the  Judge  trying  a  jury  case, 
but  sitting  down  among  the  lawyers  and  smoking  a  pipe;  but 
was  horrified  a  minute  later  to  see  a  long-legged,  slouchy  cuss 
from  the  Dog  Creek  country  walk  in  and  hear  him  address  his 
Honor  thus:  "Say,  Joe,  gimme  a  light."  In  true  old  soldier 
fashion,  the  Judge  handed  this  man  his  pipe,  the  bowl  was  put 
over  the  caller's  pipe  and  the  smoke  came  from  both;  Judge 
McGee's  pipe  being  returned,  the  two  smoked  away,  and  that 
trial  proceeded.  And  I  thought:  "What  a  great  opportunity 
Harper  misses  by  not  having  an  artist  here  to  sketch  this  scene." 
Yet  in  less  than  a  year  I  too  was  smoking  a  pipe  at  that  same 
bar  among  the  lawyers  of  good  old  Daviess  County. 

At  the  general  election  in  1868  Major  McGee  was  elect- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  187 

ed  and  for  two  years  served  as  the  Missouri  State  Register 
of  Lands,  and  was  again  nominated  for  the  office  in  1870,  but 
went  down  in  defeat  along  with  our  other  nominees  of  the 
Republican  party. 

Later  on  he  was  the  U.  S.  Marshal  for  the  Western  Dis- 
trict of  Missouri,  with  headquarters  at  Kansas  City,  and  was 
succeeded  in  that  office  in  December,  1885,  by  Colonel  Elijah 
Gates,  who  was  appointed  thereto  by  President  Cleveland. 

When  first  I  knew  this  grand,  good  man,  his  face  was 
full  and  ruddy,  with  sandy  hair  and  whiskers,  and,  like  the 
soldier  and  hero  he  was,  he  stood  above  six  feet  high.  But 
when  he  died  at  his  Gallatin  home  in  1905,  the  snows  of 
eighty-four  winters  had  turned  his  hair  snow  white,  the  soldier 
slept,  the  strange  and  sudden  dignity  of  death  was  his,  and  long 
years  had  laid  low  the  once  intellectual  giant  of  the  Grand 
River  country.  His  "Memoirs"  have  since  been  printed  by 
Rollin  J.  Britton,  a  gifted  young  lawyer  of  the  Gallatin  bar. 

In  writing  of  Major  McGee,  I  throw  in  this  incident,  for, 
not  unlike  others,  I  always  feel  a  strong  temptation  to  say  a 
word  about  my  children  anyway.  He  had  known  and  been 
fond  of  our  boy,  John  Edmund  McDougal  ("Ned"),  ever  since 
he  was  a  baby  at  Gallatin,  and  one  summer  evening  here,  many 
years  ago,  we  three  were  sitting  on  the  front  porch  at  home  out 
on  Troost  Aveune.  The  Major  was  here  visiting  me  and  our 
talk  at  first  ran  on  war-times  and  the  law ;  but  all  three  natu- 
rally fell  into  a  discussion  of  the  vacation  then  being  taken  by 
Mrs.  McDougal  and  all  other  members  of  the  household,  when 
that  boy,  not  over  ten,  in  his  earnest  way,  sagely  and  truly 
said :  "The  absence  of  Mother  always  transforms  this  home 
into  a  mere  house." 

As  Gallatin  was  long  my  home,  it  may  not  be  inappropriate 


188  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  here  reproduce  my  letter  to  one  of  the  newspapers  tnere  on 
October  24,  1908: 

"Dear  Missourian: — Forty-two  years  ago  to-day  my  wan- 
dering feet  first  pressed  the  sacred  soil  of  dear  old  Missouri. 
To-day,  at  nearly  sixty-four  years  af  age,  I  am  still  proud  of 
the  fact  that  1  then  came  to  this  State,  and  prouder  yet  that  for 
nearly  twenty  years  I  was  a  resident  and  citizen  of  Daviess 
County — then  I  came  and  have  since  lived  here. 

"But  on  that  day,  now  so  long  ago,  I  came  into  Missouri 
over  the  H.  &  St.  Joe  R.  R.,  and  my  first  stop  was  at  the  then 
grand  hotel  called  the  'Planter's  House'  at  Chillicothe.  That 
town  was  then  a  'hummer.'  The  songs  of  the  saw,  hammer, 
and  axe  and  the  kissing  of  the  seductive  billiard-balls  were 
heard  all  night  long,  and  settlers  in  'free  Missouri'  were  ar- 
riving on  every  train.  The  next  morning  I  took  passage 
on  the  lumbering  stage-coach  of  that  time,  and  through  the 
mud  and  the  rain  slowly  made  my  way  up  to  Bancroft,  in 
the  northeast  part  of  your  county.  My  father  and  family  had 
removed  to  that  county  in  the  spring  of  '66,  and,  having  been 
a  private  soldier  in  the  Union  Army  all  through  the  Civil  War, 
I  had  seen  but  little  of  them  since  '61.  So  I  was  naturally 
anxious  to  visit  them  all,  and  no  twenty-four  miles  ever  seemed 
so  long.  My  intention  was  to  be  with  the  family  for  ten  days 
and  then  go  to  either  the  Pacific  slope  or  to  South  America. 
But  we  got  into  Bancroft  in  the  rain  before  night-time,  and 
you  may  well  believe  that  there  was  then  a  happy  reunion  of  the 
Clan  McDougal.  The  following  morning  the  sun  was  up  long 
before  I  was.  The  day  was  most  beautiful,  and  from  the  roof 
of  his  brand-new  house,  just  west  of  town,  my  father  showed 
me  the  roofs  of  twenty-seven  other  new  houses  that  had  all 
gone  up  that  year.  Right  then  and  there  that  view  and  the 
'Bancroft  prairies'  captured  me,  and  I  have  ever  since  been 
their  willing  slave.  Since  '66  I  have  traveled  much  over  and 
through  this  wondrous  American  continent,  but  never  have  I 
seen  a  more  fertile  country  or  one  that  was  in  any  way  better 
than  those  same  prairies. 

"Full  of  youth  and  hope  and  fire  and  energy,  I  was  then 
a  young  man,  and  soon  went  down  to  Gallatin.  Those  of  yoa 
who  live  there  now,  with  your  schools,  churches,  public  build- 
ings, and  all  the  modern  and  luxurious  appointments  of  home, 
can  hardly  appreciate  Gallatin1  as  I  first  saw  it,  forty-two  years 
ago.  My  memory  is  good,  but  if  there  was  a  sidewalk  of 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  189 

any  kind  in  town  twenty  consecutive  feet  in  length,  or  a 
fresh  brush  of  paint  on  any  residence  in  the  place  (except  the 
home  of  Captain  John  Ballinger,  who  was  that  year  elected 
sheriff),  I  do  not  now  recall  either. 

"Going  at  once  into  the  office  of  Judge  Dodge  and  begin- 
ning the  study  of  the  law,  having  no  family  ties  and  no  friends 
short  of  the  Bancroft  country,  you  can  perhaps  understand 
how  and  why  it  was  that  for  a  time  I  was  a  trifle  lonesome. 
This  speedily  passed  away,  and  for  many  happy  and  pros- 
perous years  in  your  midst  I  was  blessed  with  an  abundance 
of  good  friends  and  clients.  In  the  early  days  we  did  not  have 
the  up-to  date  entertainments  you  now  have.  We  were  then 
fourteen  miles  from  a  railroad,  amusements  were  scarce, 
'The  Maiden's  Prayer'  or  'Smith's  March'  was  the  summit 
of  the  then  few  piano-players,  and  many  a  time,  for  want  of 
something  else  to  do,  with  a  lot  of  good  fellows  have  I  sat 
about  'the  Square'  in  the  cool  of  a  summer  evening,  watching 
the  flight  of  millions  of  chimney  swallows  as  they  swiftly 
whirled  around  in  the  air  and  finally  flew  into  the  various 
chimneys  of  your  old  court-house.  Then  Richardson.  Mc- 
Feran,  Sheets,  Dodge,  Leopard,  McGee,  Hargis,  Cravens,  Clin- 
gan,  Woodruff,  Stcne,  Coulson,  Conover,  Hicklin,  Venable,  Os- 
born,  Givens,  Lawson,  Brosius,  Jacobs,  Grantham,  Brown, 
Deistlehorst,  Bowen,  Taylor,  Hill,  Folmsbee,  Peniston,  Knauer, 
Wynn,  Buchols,  Keene,  and  many  others  whose  names  are 
not  recalled  at  the  moment,  were  in  their  glory ;  but  they  are 
all  dead  and  gone  now,  and  the  present  generation  hardly  re- 
calls either  name  or  achievement.  So  it  goes,  and  may  be 
it  is  just  as  well.  But  the  few  survivors  stop  and  look  back- 
ward now  and  then  and  do  not  attempt  to  repress  a  sigh  be- 
cause the  old  friends  and  old  times  are  gone  forever.  A 
thousand  pleasing  yet  sad  memories  will  come  up,  and  the  sole 
question  with  the  old  timer  is :  What  shall  not  be  said  ? 

"Away  back  in  sunny  Tennessee,  and  long  ago,  originated 
the  saying  that  'He  who  once  drinks  of  the  waters  of  Caney 
Fork  returns  there  to  die';  and  the  same  is  true  of  Grand 
River.  This  thought,  not  less  than  the  hope  of  meeting  and 
greeting  many  an  old-time  friend,  led  me  to  go  back  to  Gal- 
latin  to  pay  one  more  tribute  of  affectionately  grateful  re- 
spect to  the  people  of  Daviess  County  at  the  dedication  of  their 
splendid  new  court-house  on  the  fifth  of  this  month.  That 
tribute  was  paid  in  silence,  for  I  sat  alone,  and  with  utter 


190  RECOLLECTIONS 

strangers,  away  back  in  the  audience,  and  with  thoughtful 
attention  listened  to  the  many  excellent  addresses  and  solemn 
ceremonies  attending!  that  dedication.  If  lips  and  tongue  were 
silent,  my  thoughts  upon  the  olden  time  were  not ;  and  I  could 
but  think:  What  could  and  would  many  of  the  silent  slum- 
berers  have  then  said  could  they  once  more  come  back  and 
face  Daviess  County?  Most  of  them  were  there  long  before 
my  day  and  knew  all  about  the  people  and  their  history  from 
early  pioneer  times  but  they  were  not  there  to  witness  their 
own  triumph. 

"Well,  I  was  and  am  glad  I  attended  that  dedication.  The 
older  lawyers  learned  to  'think  on  their  feet'  in  the  old  court- 
house, while  the  new  ones  can  do  the  same  thing  in  the  new. 
Tender  memories  will  cling  around  the  old  so  long  as  the  ear- 
lier settlers  shall  last;  but  in  so  providing  for  the  wants  and 
the  needs  of  present  and  future  generations  you  have  done 
both  wisely  and  well.  As  long  as  you  live  this  new  building 
will  be  your  safety,  your  pride,  and  your  glory." 

Five  years  ago  the  pictures  of  the  ''Old  Guard"  of  Gallatin 
were  reprinted.  Most  of  these  are  named  among  the  dead 
in  my  letter  of  1908.  But  of  them  I  then  said  in  local  print : 

"Dear  Democrat: — I  thank  you  sincerely  for  the  compli- 
ment implied  in  your  courteous  request  for  me  to  write  a  com- 
munication relating  to  the  'Old  Guard,'  whose  pictured  faces 
are  so  admirably  reproduced  in  your  last  issue,  but  in  saying 
that  such  a  communication  would  be  appreciated  and  gladly 
published  you  make  a  proposition  so  rash  as  to  convince  me 
that  you  don't  know  how  easy  it  is  for  me  to  speak  with  the 
pen  upon  a  subject  that  interests  me  so  much  and  that  I  love 
so  well  as  'The  "Old  Guard"  of  Gallatin.' 

"You  see,  I  first  struck  Gallatin  in  the  fall  of  1866,  an  acL- 
ive  young  fellow,  with  an  abundant  accumulation  of  good 
clothes,  bottomed  with  a  $17  pair  of  Benkert  Scotch-soled  boots 
and  crowned  with  an  ultra-fashionable  plug  hat,  but  without 
either  money  or  friends  in  the  town,  and  the  'Old  Guard'  of  to- 
day, in  all  the  rugged,  honest,  honorable  power  and  glory  of 
lusty,  vigorous  manhood,  was  then  'on  guard.'  To  be  thus 
togged  out  was  not  the  best  possible  advertisement  for  a  young- 
stranger  in,  that  country  and  at  that  time,  for  most  of  the  'Old 
Guard'  then  wore  the  'brush'  hat  (the  survivors  will  recol- 
lect it),  and  cowskin  boots  were  then  in  fashion  there,  and 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  191 

jeans  pants  were  in  evidence  everywhere.  I  soon  found  out 
that,  while  not  arrayed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  my  attire  was 
against  me  and  that  this  elegant  plug  hat  was  the  pet  aversion 
of  many.  But  I  had  been  through  the  Big  War,  had  trav- 
eled the  country  over,  had  seen  the  elephant  and  pulled  his 
tail,  and  knew  some  things,  and  1  soon  determined  to  become 
and  remain  in  all  things  as  nearly  like  those  with  whom  1  had 
cast  my  lot  as  possible,  and  to  win  their  esteem  and  friendship; 
so  I  at  once  entered  the  office  of  Judge  Dodge  as  a  law  stu- 
dent, and  from  that  time  on  until  I  was  admitted  to  the  bar 
in  '68  I  worked  like  a  Trojan  in  getting  up  the  first  abstract 
of  land  titles  in  Daviess  County  and  studied  law  far  into  each 
night,  denying  myself  all  the  pleasures  of  the  time  and  place 
excepting  base-ball.  No  member  of  the  'Old  Guard'  ever 
treated  me  or  any  other  stranger  with  the  slightest  discourtesy, 
but  in  my  case  they  simply  and  wisely  watched  and  waited  to 
properly  size  me  up.  Captain  Ballinger  was  the  first  man 
to  pat  me  on  the  back  and  say,  'Young  man,  you  are  pursu- 
ing the  right  course;  keep  it  up — you  '11  win."  Then  courtly 
Major  Clingan  spoke  most  kindly  and  encouragingly,  other; 
did  the  same,  and  the  first  thing  I  knew  I  became,  without 
naturalization  or  even  muster-in,  a  full-fledged  member  in  good 
standing  of  the  'Old  Guard'  of  to-day,  and  until  I  left  Gal- 
latin  to  come  to  Kansas  City  in  1885,  I  was  in  almost  daily 
contact  with  all  the  members  in  every  relation  of  life  between 
man  and  man  in  time  of  peace.  To  say  that  I  honored,  re- 
spected, and  loved  them  all  is  but  to  publicly  repeat  that  which 
I  have  often  said  in  private. 

"I  have  known  many  places  and  peoples,  yet  for  sterling 
integrity,  correct  living,  thinking,  and  acting,  warm-hearted 
and  generous-handed  friendship,  high  courage,  standing,  and 
character,  sobriety,  industry,  kindness,  and  loyalty  to  country, 
family,  and  friends,  I  know  of  no  body  of  men  on  earth  that 
have  or  deserve  a  higher  place  in  the  affections  of  a  friend  than 
my  fellows  of  the  'Old  Guard'  of  Gallatin.  The  surviving 
members  of  that  noble  band  of  men,  as  well  as  the  child  re-, 
descendants,  and  friends  of  all  the  members,  owe  to  Rollin  J. 
Britton,  for  his  loving,  painstaking  care  in  securing  and  pre- 
serving in  permanent  form  this  group  of  pictures,  a  debt  of 
gratitude  that  neither  time  nor  money  can  repay,  and  T  am 
sure  that  I  but  voice  the  sentiment  of  all  the  survivors,  as 
well  as  the  descendants  of  the  dead,  in  here  tendering  him 


192  RECOLLECTIONS 

our  honest,  heartfelt  thanks  for  his  invaluable  labor  of  love. 

"I  have  just  now  again  looked  over  each  of  the  pictured 
faces,  and  what  a  flood  of  tender  and  heroic  memories  each 
face  brings  back  to  me !  'Cheers  for  the  living,  tears  for  the 
dead.' 

"Thus  far  I  have  spoken  of  the  'Old  Guard'  in  the  aggre- 
gate and  in  justice  to  you  and  your  patrons  dare  not  go  further, 
for  the  reason  that  if  I  should  take  advantage  of  your  gen- 
erous offer  and  write  and  you  print  all  the  good  and  interesting 
things  I  recall  and  could  easily  write  of  each  man  in  this  group, 
that  matter  would  absorb  every  column  of  your  paper  for 
weeks,  your  ads  would  be  crowded  out,  and  you  would  for 
all  that  time  be  deprived  of  the  pleasure  of  cussin'  Republic- 
ans! I  cannot  get  my  own  consent  to  deprive  you  of  this 
profit  and  pleasure,  and,  as  it  is  now  nearing  the  noon  of  ni^ht, 
I  reluctantly  bid  you  and  the  'Old  Guard'  an  affectionate  good- 
night." 

This  same  Major  McGee  was  so  closely  connected  with 
the  following  stories  that  I  also  reprint  my  communication 
of  last  year  (1908)  on  the  early-day  Christmas  in  Gallatin: 

"Dear  Missourian: — Your  roving  request  for  me  to  make 
you  a  few  broken  remarks  on  'An  Early  Christmas  in  Galla- 
tin' applies  with  equal  force  to  any  Christmas  from  1866  to 
1884,  for  during  all  these  years  I  lived  among  you  and  could 
easily  paint  a  composite  picture  of  any  one  or  all  of  these  days. 
Now,  if  my  orders  only  permitted  it,  I  'd  like  to  wander  away 
back  to  the  days  of  the  Civil  War  and  tell  you  of  the  occur- 
rences of  any  Christmas  day  from  1861  to  1865.  I  now  re- 
call them  all  distinctly  while  in  the  service  of  Uncle  Sam,  and 
just  how  we  put  in  each  day — in  camp,  or  on  the  march,  or 
in  the  fight,  or  in  'pressing  into  the  service'  a  chicken  or  a 
pig  or  any  other  vicious  animal  that  might  have  bitten  the 
'boys  in  blue.'  In  those  far-away  times  we  often  marched 
and  fought  and  retreated  all  in  the  same  day.  I  am  rather 
glad  of  it  now,  though  it  wasn't  a  bit  funny  then.  Then,  you 
know,  it  was  'war  to  the  knife,  and  knife  to  the  hilt' ;  for  Amer- 
icans were  against  Americans,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  our  side 
sometimes  got  licked.  Early  in  life,  however,  I  learned  that 
the  first  duty  of  a  soldier  is  to  obey  orders ;  and,  as  you  call 
for  a  Gallatin  story  only,  T  suppose  I  must  follow  the  example 
of  his  fellow-Sunday-school  scholar  that  Milt  Ewing  used  to 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  193 

tell  us  about.     That  boy  told  his  teacher  in  Ohio  that  he  'just 
must  have   Sinbad  the   Sailor,  begosh !  or  nothin'.' 

"CHRISTMAS,    1866. 

"The  story  I  am  going  to  tell  you  didn't  happen  on  that 
exact  day,  but  it  is  the  first  that  comes  to  mind  and  actually 
did  occur  along  about  that  time.  Joseph  H.  Herndon  (we 
then  called  him  'Hi'  for  short)  then  kept  a  general  store  at 
Gallatin  on  the  corner  where  is  now  located  the  Farmers'  Ex- 
change Bank,  and  my  brother  Fes  was  his  clerk.  Although 
two  years  my  junior,  this  brother  is  now  a  white-whiskered 
old  chap  living  up  at  Princeton,  Mo.,  and  is  a  trifle  better  now 
than  then,  while  I  remain  about  the  same.  Well,  about  that 
time  Will  R.  Hendricks  and  his  brother  Abe,  of  the  Bancroft 
country,  haopened  in  Gallatin  in  a  big  sleigh  and  insisted  that, 
as  it  was  Christmas-time,  we  two  should  go  driving  with  them 
and  pay  a  visit  to  our  father,  who  lived  near  by  them.  The 
weather  was  fearfully  cold,  the  snow  over  a  foot  deep,  and 
we  just  had  to  have  something  to  keep  us  warm — all  being 
old  soldiers.  So  we  went  from  'Hi's'  store  over  to  John  T. 
Taylor's  drug  store,  then  on  the  east  side  of  the  public  square, 
and  procured  the  necessary  refreshments  (just  as  good  for  man 
as  beast),  done  up  in  a  glass  bottle.  But  'Uncle  John'  was 
as  wise  in  his  day  and  generation  as  are  Harfield  and  his  other 
successors  in  this,  and  then  assured  us  that  it  was  against  the 
law  to  permit  that  bottle  to  go  out  of  his  store  'dryso.'  Hence 
he  'medicated'  it  by  placing  therein  (it  was  a  quart)  an  inch 
roll  of  cinnamon  bark!  If  that  bark  either  hurt  or  helped  the 
liquor,  we  never  found  it  out.  Thus  armed  and  equipped, 
however,  we  started,  and  after  much  trial,  snow,  cold,  and 
tribulation,  finally  arrived  at  the  home  of  their  father,  Eli 
Hendricks,  where  we  had  a  bully  good  dinner.  Then  we 
drove  to  father's  house,  took  my  sisters  Delia  and  Hattie  in 
the  sleigh,  and  all  went  on  to  a  Mr.  Pierce's,  southeast  of 
Bancroft,  where  we  had  a  great  dance  that  night.  Let  's  see, 
that  was  about  forty-two  years  ago.  I  wonder  to-night  if  all 
the  merry  dancers  of  that  night  are  still  on  earth?  Some  of 
them  I  know  are  not,  but  I  hope  most  of  them  are. 

"CHRISTMAS,  1867. 

"In  November,  1867,  John  Reno  and  his  gang  had  robbed 
the  Daviess  County  safe  of  about  $23.000.  and  about  De- 
cember 15,  1867,  Captain  John  Ballinger,  who  was  then  sheriff 


194  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  your  county,  ably  assisted  by  Captain  Joab  Woodruff  and 
Alex  M.  Irving,  of  your  city,  captured  Reno  at  a  hotel  in  In- 
dianapolis and  brought  and  lodged  him  in  your  county  jail. 
Reno  told  me  that  when  he  saw  Captain  Woodruff's  jeans 
breeches  and  'brush'  hat  in  that  hotel,  he  knew  at  once  that  the 
jig  was  up,  and  surrendered  as  quietly  and  quickly  as  possible. 
Along  in  jail  with  Reno,  and  charged  with  complicity  in  the 
same  crime,  were  Daniel  Smith,  of  near  Gallatin,  and  Frank 
Sparks,  of  Indiana.  Sheriff  Ballinger,  always  as  brave  as  a 
lion,  felt  alarmed  lest  the  friends  of  Reno  should  rescue  him 
or  a  mob  of  infuriated  citizens  of  Daviess  County  should  take 
Reno  and  his  gang  out  and  hang  them.  So,  to  quiet  his  ap- 
prehensions, Jehiel  T.  Day,  Crow  Dunn,  Will  Hargis,  Clay 
Peniston,  Thomson  Brosius,  and  myself,  all  young  fellows 
then,  volunteered  to  stay  in  jail  and  guard  these  prisoners. 
We  soon  became  known  throughout  the  country  as  the  'Na- 
tional Guard'  and  remained  on  duty  day  and  night  until  Reno, 
upon  being  arraigned  in  circuit  court,  pleaded  guilty,  was 
duly  sentenced  by  Judge  Jonas  J.  Clark,  and  was  started  on 
his  way  to  Jefferson  City  early  in  January,  1868,  to  there  serve 
a  term  of  twrenty-five  years  in  our  State  penitentiary  for  his 
crime.  We  were  there  on  duty  in  that  jail  on  Christinas 
day,  1867. 

"While  so  engaged  there  in  guarding  these  prisoners  late 
one  night  along  about  Christmas,  Sparks  was  called  for  in  a 
quiet  but  most  unusual  manner.  Captain  Ballinger,  Major 
McGee,  and  Bob  Grantham,  all  public  officers  then,  came  into 
the  jail  looking  grave  and  thoughtful,  and,  with  Sparks  in 
their  midst,  went  out  into  the  darkness.  In  a  few  minutes, 
away  down  the  gulch,  where  old  Jerry  Casey  (colored)  used 
to  live,  we  heard  several  musket-shots  fired.  Two  or  three 
of  our  men  who  were  in  the  game  (I  wasn't)  sighed  heavily 
and  muttered,  "Poor  Sparks!"  After  this  funereal  occur- 
rence the  same  officers  returned  to  the  jail  and  in  the  same  way 
called  for  Smith,  and  this  time  I  was  one  of  the  party  called 
to  go  and  help  execute  the  prisoner !  We  took  him  out  under 
a  tree  in  the  court-house  yard.  Smith  was  asked  if  he  had 
anything  to  say  before  he  died.  He  said  he  would  like  to 
pray,  and,  kneeling  down  on  the  cold,  wet  earth,  the  doomed 
man  uttered  a  prayer  that  was  at  once  the  most  earnest,  im- 
pressive, and  powerful  appeal  to  the  Throne  to  which  I  have 
ever  listened.  Here  in  my  cosy  den  at  home  I  even  now  re- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  195 

call  the  outline  of  that  marvelous  prayer.  In  tones  that  would 
have  convinced  a  wooden  cigar  sign,  he  called  upon  God  to 
witness  his  innocence ;  prayed  for  his  wife  and  children,  family 
and  friends ;  for  John  Reno,  who  had  brought  him  to  the  very 
shadow  of  the  gallows ;  and  closed  with  an  appeal  for  the  for- 
giveness of  'the  officers  of  the  law  who  were  then  about  to  take 
the  life  of  an  innocent  man.'  A  rope  was  produced ;  one  end 
of  it  was  fastened  around  the  prisoner's  neck  and  the  other 
thrown  over  the  limb  of  a  tree.  The  command  was  given, 
'String  him  up !'  I  was  new  in  the  country — not  accustomed 
to  that  sort  of  thing.  I  thought  to  myself,  'This  is  hell;  but 
here  I  am  among  the  vigilantes  of  the  far  West,  and  I  'm  one 
of  them.'  So  with  the  others  I  pulled  on  that  rope,  and  in 
the  dim  and  dark  of  that  murky  night  in  December,  '67,  I  now 
see  Smith  dangling  in  the  air.  I  thought  it  was  the  real  thing, 
and  that  I  was  actually  engaged  in  an  earnest,  patriotic  effort 
to  murder  a  man !  But  before  the  breath  left  Smith,  he  was 
let  down  and  again  asked  not  to  appear  before  his  God  with 
a  lie,  on  his  lips  and  was  again  urged  to  confess  all.  Protest- 
ing his  innocence  still,  he  was  swung  up  twice  more  and  let 
down  each  time.  Whether  guilty  or  not,  I  never  knew,  but 
both  he  and  Sparks  went  free. 

"THE  I.  O.  D.  C.  C.  B.  OF  GALLATIN. 

"Christmas,  holidays,  and  Sundays  were  pretty  much  all 
alike  in  the  early  times  at  Gallatin.  All  railroads  were  many 
miles  away;  daily  papers  and  telegrams  were  scarce,  good 
readers  and  good  singers  scarcer,  and  religious  revivals,  joint 
debates  on  baptism,  and  the  annual  advent  of  the  circus  were 
our  principal  amusements ;  yet  it  was  a  good  town  to  live  in. 
I  was  then  a  young  law  student  and  my  time  wasn't  worth 
near  as  much  as  that  of  a  good,  industrious  hen ;  yet  everybody 
else  seemed  reasonably  busy,  without  any  hurry,  or  bustle, 
or  rush  about  anything.  Philosophical  problems  never  vexed 
the  people  then,  nor  were  we  remorselessly  scientific  nor 
ferociously  virtuous  at  that  time.  So,  along  with  business 
and  other  every-day  work,  loafing  became  a  sort  of  fine  art; 
and  aside  from  our  personal  affairs,  no  one  either  took  or  had 
any  special  interest  in  any  given  matter  that  did  not  directly 
concern  him. 

"But  then,  as  now,  the  desire  of  the  young  men  was  to 
strike  out  and  subdue  some  new  field;  to  do  something  not 
yet  undertaken.  This  feeling,  as  one  of  the  direct  results 


196  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  our  association  in  this  'National  Guard,'  led  up,  naturally 
enough,  to  the  formation  of  Gallatin's  crowning  glory — the 
I.  O.  D.  C.  C.  B.  Early  in  1868  this  then  famous  club  was 
formally  and  finally  sprung  upon  an  unsuspecting  world.  It 
was  for  bachelors  only,  and  at  first  it  was  purely  a  literary 
affair.  Its  original  purposes,  however,  were  soon  discarded 
as  being  entirely  too  tame  for  time  and  place  and 'members. 
I  now  have  before  me,  in  my  own  handwriting,  covering  eight 
sheets  of  legal  cap,  with  five  Articles  and  heaven  only  knows 
how  many  sections,  the  original  constitution  of  that  club. 
This  is  all  duly  signed  by  fifteen  Gallatin  bachelors:  Chris- 
topher C.  Gilliland,  Henry  C.  McDougal,  J.  Ambrose  Brough- 
ton,  Milt  Ewing,  VVilliam  A.  Hargis,  David  T.  Johnson,  Jehiel 
T.  Day,  Joshua  F.  Hicklin,  John  M.  Cravens,  Henry  H.  Da- 
vis, H.  Clay  Peniston,  Ross  J.  Singer,  James  T.  (Crow)  Dunn, 
Charles  A.  Shaw,  and  David  S.  Howe.  Of  course  every  mem- 
ber obligated  himself  never  to  get  married  and  naturally  every 
man  violated  that  obligation.  I  was  not  its  chief;  Day  was, 
and  him  we  always  addressed  as  'the  G.  C.  P.'  Take  him 
around  the  corner  some  fine  day;  he  could  (but  won't)  tell 
you  all  about  our  club.  If  you  would  know  as  much  about 
it  all  as  has  ever  been  in  print,  then  turn  back  in  your  files  to 
your  issue  of  The  Missourian  of  date  May  5,  1881,  and  see 
how  I  then  wrote  nearly  a  page  of  your  paper  in  describing 
this  club,  and  Day's  then  very  recent  marriage  to  Mrs.  Paul- 
ine Fisher  Davis.  He  was  the  last  of  our  club  to  go  the  way 
of  all  the  earth  as  a  bachelor,  and  of  all  the  jolly  good  dogs 
in  that  once  happy  and  care-free  kennel,  Day  is  the  only  one 
now  living  in  Gallatin.  Nearly  all  the  other  members  have 
long  since  been  mustered  out  of  life  and  the  few  living  sur- 
vivors are  widely  scattered.  I  trust  our  dead  are  all  in  the 
'Land  o'  the  Leal'  to.-night,  waiting  on  the  banks  of  the  farther 
shore  with  outstretched  hands  to  again  meet  and  greet  and 
welcome  ^  their  few  surviving  brethren.  My  heart  wanders 
back  again  to  these  boy  friends  of  mine.  All  deserve  a  home 
in  heaven,  I  'm  thinking,  for  in  its  day  that  Club  did  much 
good  and  no  harm," 

THOMAS  A.  MAULSBY,  Fairmont,  West  Va.  Just  when 
I  first  met  this  gallant  soldier  and  his  young  wife  I  do  not  now 
recall;  but  it  was  long,  long  ago,  they  were  newly  wedded 
and  I  a  boy.  I  was  devoted  to  them;  we  then  lived  near  each 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  197 

other,  and  now  they  have  both  joined  "the  silent  majority."  In 
1 86 1  he  became  the  captain  of  Company  C  of  my  regiment, 
and  a  little  later  his  company  became  "Maulsby's  Battery." 
While  he  and  his  battery  were  holding  the  Confederate  Army 
in  check  at  the  battle  of  Martinsburg  in  June,  '63,  a  rifle- 
shot lamed  him  for  life;  he  was  wounded  nigh  unto  death 
and  they  sent  him  to  the  hospital  at  Clarksburg.  My  meals 
were  then  served  at  this  hospital,  and  three  times  every  day 
Charlie  Eyster  and  I  met  at  the  Captain's  cot  and  there  sung 
war-songs  of  faith  and  hope  and  triumph  until  the  pale,  wan 
face  of  our  beloved  friend  at  last  relaxed  into  grateful  smiles. 
He  never  fully  recovered  from  this  wound;  but  always  be- 
lieved these  little  boyish  diversions  then  saved  his  life.  The 
story  of  my  last  visit  to  this  good  man  has  been  told  in  print 
by  a  friend  so  much  better  than  I  can  tell  it  that  her  letter  to 
his  home  paper  is  here  reproduced : 

"WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  1332  V  Street,  N.  W. 

"August  i,  1907. 
"Editor  of  The  West  Virginian:. . 

"Proclaiming  myself  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War  only  be- 
cause I  saw  much  of  its  field  and  camp  life,  I  want  to  tell  you 
a  little  story  that  led  up  to  a  most  touching  reunion  of  three 
Marion  County  veterans  up  at  Mountain  Lake  Park,  Mary- 
land, the  other  day. 

"Throughout  that  war,  my  husband  was  an  official  in 
the  U.  S.  Quartermaster's  Department,  and  wherever  duty 
called  him,  there  was  I. 

"Among  a  number  of  young  Union  soldiers  to  whom  I 
became  a  sort  of  big  sister,  was  a  tall,  slender,  smooth-faced 
Virginia  boy,  whom  I  first  met  at  Graf  ton,  West  Virginia, 
in  '63.  Later  on  our  office  force  was  ordered  to  Gallipolis, 
Ohio,  and  when  mustered  out  in  the  summer  of  '64,  this  boy 
joined  us  there,  he  and  my  husband  working  side  by  side  in  the 
same  office,  and  we  were  members  of  the  same  military  fam- 
ily until  the  war  closed. 

"Then  the  young  soldier-clerk  went  west  'to  grow  up 
with  the  country,'  and  we  settled  down  in  our  home  in  this 
city.  He  became  a  lawyer,  and  for  years  his  professional 


198  RECOLLECTIONS 

duties  have  often  called  him  to  Washington  before  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  and  the  departments.  The 
friendship  of  war-times  remains  unbroken,  and  when  his  work 
permits  the  diversion,  he  has  always  been  a  welcome  guest 
at  our  home.  That  soldier  boy  is  now  Judge  Henry  Clay 
McDougal,  of  Kansas  City,  Missouri. 

"Back  in  the  war-times  I  often  heard  him  speak  of  Cap- 
tain Maulsby,  and  some  years  ago  I  read  a  speech  which  he 
made  at  a  reunion  of  Maulsby's  Battery.  From  all  this  I 
knew  that  the  Judge  and  the  Captain  were  bound  together  by 
the  strongest  ties  of  comradeship  and  friendship.  So  when  the 
Judge,  who  was  again  at  Washington  on  legal  business,  came 
to  my  home  the  other  evening,  with  a  telegraphic  invitation 
urging  him  to  visit  Captain  Maulsby  at  Mountain  Lake  Park, 
and  asked  me  to  join  him,  I  readily  consented,  for  he  needed 
the  recreation  and  I  wanted  it. 

"Being  an  old  campaigner  myself,  I  was  soon  ready,  and 
together  we  two  hiked  off  the  next  morning  for  the  moun- 
tains over  the  B.  and  O.,  riding  in  a  palace  car,  taking  a  su- 
perb luncheon  in  the  dining-car.  'This  is  a  trifle  different,' 
quietly  said  the  Judge,  'from  the  way  I  traveled  over  the  same 
road  in  the  war;  for  then  we  rode  in  cattle-cars  and  subsisted 
on  hard  tack  and  flitch.' 

"Arriving  at  Mountain  Lake  Park,  we  were  warmlj 
welcomed  by  Captain  Maulsby,  who  during  the  three-days  re- 
union provided  us  with  comfortable  quarters  and  abundant 
rations,  to  say  nothing  of  the  delightful  drives  through  OaK- 
land,  Deer  Park,  and  the  adjacent  mountains.  And  such  a 
reunion!  Present  for  duty:  Captain  Thomas  A.  Maulsby, 
of  Fairmont,  West  Virginia,  late  commander  of  Maulsby's 
famous  battery;  Private  Henry  C.  McDougal,  late  of  Com- 
pany A,  6th  West  Virginia  Infantry;  and  Captain  Amos  N. 
Prichard,  late  of  the  I2th  West  Virginia  Infantry.  All  three 
went  into  the  Union  Army  early  in  the  Civil  War,  fought 
it  out,  and  suffered  all  its  privations,  but  would  do  it  all  over 
again  to  save  the  Union. 

"These  meetings  by  the  wayside  are  becoming  infrequent, 
for  the  boys  of  '61  are  fast  falling  in  line  for  the  last  roll-call. 

"But  those  who  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  ranks, 
who  shared  the  hardship  and  danger  of  march  and  battlefield, 
who  joined  in  the  frolic  and  hilarity  of  camp-life,  and  who 
with  honor,  and  often  with  scarred  and  maimed  bodies,  re- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  199 

turned  to  the  duties  of  civil  life,  have  one  and  all  a  love  for 
their  comrades  'passing  the  love  of  woman.' 

"Though  the  years  have  brought  gray  hairs,  and  cruel 
wounds  still  ache,  the  three  were  once  more  boys  again,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  Captain  Prichard  boasts  of  more  than 
four-score  years  to  his  credit  and  Captain  Maulsby  has  passed 
the  allotted  three-score  years  and  ten,  while  Judge  McDougal 
has  just  scored  the  retiring  age  of  sixty-two,  which  does  not 
spell  retirement  for  him  by  any  means. 

"Each  has  known  the  other  for  a  lifetime,  and  each  loves 
the  other  like  a  brother ;  so  that  this  brief  meeting  will  live  in 
their  memories  as  long  as  life  lasts. 

"Others,  too,  who  shared  their  happiness  will  not  forget 
their  recital  of  war-time  experiences,  their  singing  of  songs  of 
camp  and  battlefield — 'Marching  through  Georgia,'  'Bingen 
on  the  Rhine,'  'Babylon  Is  Fallen,'  and  the  like,  often  rang  out 
in  the  grand  old  woods  of  the  mountains. 

"As  these  three  veteran  cronies  talked  together  of  their 
youth,  early  manhood,  the  dangers  and  glories  of  the  war,  and 
of  comrades  long  since  mustered  out  of  life,  more  than  once 
a  voice  grew  tremulous,  a  chin  quivered,  eyes  moistened,  and 
I  expected  a  breakdown ;  but  it  didn't  come  until  the  morning 
we  left.  Then,  as  Captain  Maulsby  and  the  Judge  were  super- 
intending the  replacing  at  the  front  of  the  newly  painted  house 
the  sign  'Maulsby's  Cottage/  the  Judge  suggested  that  it  be 
changed  to  read :  'Headquarters  Maulsby's  Battery.'  This 
brought  a  flood  of  recollections  to  both ;  but  the  Captain  went 
inside  his  cottage  and  the  Judge  sat  with  the  rest  of  us 
on  the  front  porch.  No  one  was  speaking,  when,  without 
warning,  the  Captain  came  out  on  his  crutches  with  his  old 
war-time  red  sash  of  a  captain  of  artillery  gracefully  around 
his  now  rotund  form,  his  sword-belt  (now  a  world  too  short), 
and  his  Colt's  Navy  revolver  in  the  service-worn  scabbard.  All 
arose  and  gave  him  the  military  salute ;  but  the  sight  of  those 
old  familiar  equipments  of  war  which  the  Judge  had  seen  the 
Captain  wear  as  a  slender  young  officer,  or  the  look  upon  the 
Captain's  face,  or  something  that  old  veterans  may  understand, 
quite  overcame  both.  The  Judge  surveyed  the  Captain  for 
n.  moment.  Neither  spoke.  Then  their  eyes  met  and  soon 
both  were  in  tears.  To  see  these  two  grand  men — strong, 
stalwart  veterans  of  the  great  war — crying  in  each  other's 


200  RECOLLECTIONS 

arms,  was  a  most  touching  sight,  and  out  of  sheer  sympathy  the 
rest  of  us  joined  our  grateful  tears  with  theirs. 

"A  few  moments  later  we  broke  camp.  The  grand  re- 
union was  ended.  God  grant  that  it  may  not  be  their  last. 

"MRS.  FRANCES  A.  JOHNSTON." 

Editorial  comment  on  the  above  letter : 
"A  GRAND  REUNION. 

"The  West  Virginian  publishes  elsewhere  in  to-day's  paper 
a  most  interesting  account  of  a  reunion  of  Civil  War  veterans 
at  Mountain  Lake  Park.  The  story  is  charmingly  written  and 
the  names  it  contains  are  so  near  and  dear  to  the  people  of  this 
community  that  the  account  will  be  read  with  intense  inter- 
est, and  we  doubt  not  that  many  an  eye  will  be  moistened  be- 
fore the  story  is  finished.  The  days  of  old  will  be  lived  over 
in  memory  by  the  comrades  of  Captains  Prichard  and  Maulsby 
and  Judge  McDougal  when  they  read  of  the  meeting  of  these 
veteran  soldiers  at  'Headquarters  Maulsby's  Battery'  at  Moun- 
tain Lake  Park.  We  are  glad  of  the  privilege  of  publishing 
such  an  interesting  story  as  that  written  by  Mrs.  Johnston." 

JAMES  A.  MULLIGAN,  Chicago,  Illinois.  Prior  to  the  war 
this  distinguished  Irish-American  lawyer  and  soldier  prac- 
ticed his  profession  at  Chicago  and  there  incidentally  command- 
ed a  military  organization  composed  of  his  fellow-countrymen, 
officially  the  Shields  Guards,  but  called  in  history  "The  Mulli- 
gan Guards."  Early  in  1861  he  recruited  and  later  command- 
ed the  23d  Illinois  Infantry.  Its  officers  and  men,  in  honor  of 
Erin's  Isle,  alike  wore  green  shirts,  and  by  reason  of  this 
peculiarity  and  their  soldierly  appearance  never  failed  to  at- 
tract attention  in  camp,  on  march,  and  in  battle.  Every  man 
of  the  regiment  was  a  fighter,  and  the  command  was  always 
known  as  the  "Irish  Brigade." 

With  his  regiment  Mulligan  was  at  Quincy,  St.  Louis, 
and  Jefferson  City,  and  from  the  latter  point  marched  over- 
land to  and  participated  in  the  famous  siege  and  battle  at  Lex- 
ington, Missouri,  in  September,  1861.  At  the  close  of  this 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  201 

fighting,  Colonel  Mulligan,  who  was  in  command,  surren- 
dered our  forces  to  General  Sterling  Price.  Nearly  all  his  offi- 
cers and  men  were  then  paroled,  and  it  was  several  months 
until  the  regiment  came  together  again.  Colonel  Mulligan  de- 
clined a  parole  for  himself  on  the  ground  that  his  Government 
did  not  recognize  as  belligerents  the  officers  or  men  of  the 
Missouri  State  Guard,  then  commanded  by  Price.  So  he  was 
treated  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  General  Price  carried  him 
Southward  and  the  two  became  warm  friends.  After  his  ex- 
change for  Colonel  Frost  of  the  opposition,  Colonel  Mulli- 
gan returned  and  again  assumed  command,  but  this  time  in 
the  Army  of  the  East. 

While  in  command  of  a  separate  brigade  at  New  Creek 
on  the  Upper  Potomac  in  the  early  spring  of  1864,  Mulli- 
gan and  his  old  regiment  nearly  all  re-enlisted  and  went  to 
their  Chicago  homes  on  the  veteran  furlough  of  thirty  day 5, 
and  that  command  temporarily  devolved  upon  Colonel  Wil- 
kinson, of  my  regiment.  When  they  returned  to  the  field,  I 
was  at  New  Creek  as  the  chief  clerk  of  that  brigade,  and 
as  such  for  a  time  was  subject  to  the  orders  of  Colonel  Mulli- 
gan. When  on  duty  or  dress  parade  there,  no  officer  of  the 
war  was  a  stricter  diciplinarian,  talked  less,  or  was  more  of 
a  martinet.  One  tap  on  his  hearquarters  silver  bell  called 
to  his  side  Martin  J.  Russell,  his  assistant  adjutant-general; 
two  taps,  his  aide-de-camp,  James  H.  Nugent;  another,  the 
chief  clerk.  We  often  saw  his  big  bold  handwriting  on 
memoranda  for  his  military  orders  and  letters,  or  listened  to 
his  curt  words  of  command;  but  unless  he  propounded  a  di- 
rect question,  neither  of  us  ever  spoke  one  word,  for  we  were 
not  there  to  talk  or  suggest  anything,  and  knew  it.  But  when 
off  duty,  no  one  could  talk  more  or  better  than  he,  and  in  his 
green  shirt  and  undress,  it  was  his  especial  pleasure  to  mix 


202  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  mingle  and  wrestle  with  his  old  "boys,"  for  then  he  was 
one  of  them  and  gave  no  thought  to  rank.  His  tall,  command- 
ing, handsome  form,  rollicking  Irish  wit,  and  infectious  laugh 
made  him  a  warm  welcome  anywhere  in  the  Army,  and  es- 
pecially so  in  his  "Irish  Brigade."  His  home  was  in  the  sad- 
dle, and  his  imposing  abandon,  picturesque  appearance  on 
horseback  at  the  head  of  his  men,  with  his  long,  glossy  hair, 
flowing  moustache,  and  eagle  eyes,  was  always  the  signal  for 
wild  cheers  for  "Mulligan  and  his  Irish  boys." 

Although  a  man  and  officer  of  unquestioned  courage  and 
ability,  yet  Colonel  Mulligan  was  not  in  political  accord  with  the 
Washington  administration,  and  I  have  always  believed  that 
this  was  the  only  reason  that  his  merits  were  not  rewarded  by  a 
general's  commission  until  it  came — after  he  fell  in  battle.  In 
the  hard  fighting  in  the  valley  of  Virginia,  under  the  command 
of  that  other  eminent  Irish-American,  General  Phil  Sheridan, 
while  leading  his  division  at  the  battle  of  Kernstown,  on  July 
24,  1864,  the  sometimes  spectacular,  yet  always  gallant  and 
efficient  Colonel  Mulligan  fell  mortally  wounded  and  soon 
died.  I  was  then  told  that  the  Colonel  and  his  beloved  wife's 
young  brother,  "Jimmie"  Nugent,  whom  I  knew  well,  both 
received  their  death  wounds  and  yielded  their  lives  for  their 
country  within  the  same  hour. 

Early  in  the  war  and  before  the  Lexington  siege,  the  old 
23d  Illinois  was  stationed  for  a  time  at  our  State  capital. 
Colonel  Mulligan  had  a  habit  of  detailing  Captain  Robert 
Adams,  Jr.,  of  that  regiment,  as  R.  Q.  M.  and  all  sorts  of 
other  assignments  which  required  a  knowledge  of  the  law 
and  the  usetof  the  pen.  This  grew  irksome,  but  the  Captain 
stood  for  it  all,  until  one  day  their  adjutant,  who  had  then 
assumed  command  of  the  regiment,  in  the  absence  of  the  field 
officers,  for  some  supposed  infraction  of  military  law,  arrest- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  203 

ed  and  placed  one  of  the  Captain's  men  in  the  guard-house. 
The  war  and  its  volunteer  soldiers  were  then  young;  no  one 
knew  or  cared  much  at  that  time  about  "the  rules  and  regu- 
lations," and  this  outrage  on  one  of  his  own  men  was  more 
then  the  Captain  would  stand.     So  he  marched  his  entire 
company  to  that  guard-house  and  promptly  released  the  prison- 
er!    Fully  resolved  that  if  he  could  not  fight  in  peace  in  the 
23d,  he  would  resign  and  join  some  other  regiment,  the  Cap- 
tain in  good  faith  repaired  to  the  headquarters  of  the  com- 
mand at  Jefferson  City  to   resign   his  commission   and  join 
some  other  regiment.     General   Ulysses   S.   Grant  happened 
to  be  present,  and  in  his  usual  kindly  way  asked  for  and  the 
Captain  explained   all  the   facts,   concluding  with  the   state- 
ment that  Adjutant  Cosgrove  was  in  command.     After  listen- 
ing in  silence  to  his  recital,  Grant's  eyes  twinkled  a  little  as  he 
(enquired:     "Who   is   your   ranking   captain?"     The   Captain 
answered :     "I  am,  sir."     "Then,"  said  Grant,  "  will  you  please 
tell  me  how  it  comes  that  your  adjutant,  who  is  only  a  first 
lieutenant,  commands  the  regiment?"     Adams  hesitated  and 
blushed,  but  at  last  said:     "1  don't  know,  sir,  how  it  happens, 
except  that  he  rides  on  horseback  and  I  go  along  on  foot  with 
the  boys."     With  his  quiet   smile,   Grant  then   said:     "My 
boy,  by  virtue  ot  your  rank,  you  are  now  in  command  of  the 
23d  Illinois."     In  telling  me  about  this  early  incident,  the 
Captain  said:     "You  should  have  seen  me  salute  and  march 
straight  from  headquarters  to  my  command,  and  the  first  thing 
I  did  there  was  to  write  an  order  to  Adjutant  Cosgiove  to 
report  to  me  at  once  under  close  arrest,  and  this  I  signed: 
'Robert   Adams,   Jr.,    Captain   commanding   Regiment." 

This  same  Captain  Adams,  now  a  distinguished  Kansas 
City  lawyer,  was  my  judge-advocate  general  for  a  time  in 
the  war,  and  1  recall  now  the  oay  in  1863  when  he  brought 


204  RECOLLECTIONS 

his  bride  to  our  headquarters  at  Clarksburg.  She  was  a  beauti- 
ful young  lady,  good  and  kind  to  the  boys,  who  worshipped 
her,  and  until  the  silver  cord  was  loosened  and  their  golden 
bowl  was  broken,  only  a  few  years  ago,  between  t'  Captain 
and  his  good  wife,  there  always  existed  a  most  beautiful  and 
genial  comradeship,  and  to  each  other  they  remained  "Joe" 
and  "Bob,"  as  in  the  days  of  their  youth. 

ROBERT  C.  SCHENCK,  Dayton,  Ohio.  Back  before  the 
war  Schenck  represented  his  home  district  in  Congress  and 
also  served  as  a  foreign  minister;  but  with  the  rank  of  a  major- 
general  of  volunteers,  and  his  headquarters  at  Baltimore,  along 
dn  1863  he  was  in  command  of  the  8th  Corps  of  the  Army. 
Then  he  was  sent  to  Congress  again,  and  in  1871  President 
Grant  sent  him  as  our  minister  to  England.  He  did  well  in 
everything  in  both  civil  and  military  life ;  but  while  represent- 
ing this  country  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  in  an  evil  hour 
for  him,  he  happened  to  instruct  a  choice  few  of  the  British 
nobility  in  the  mysteries  of  that  seductive  American  game  at 
cards  here  known  as  poker.  It  is  said  that  some  of  the  Britons 
were  so  impressed  with  the  game  that  they  caused  his  man- 
uscript on  the  rules  of  poker  to  be  printed  for  private  circu- 
lation ;  but,  as  often  happens,  the  opposition  got  hold  of  a  copy 
of  this  pamphlet,  and  for  years  afterward  fiercely  lambasted 
and  lampooned  the  good  General,  and  then  dubbed  him  "Poker 
Bob."  The  last  I  heard  of  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  waters, 
he  was  reported  dying  of  Bright's  disease,  and  soon  dropped 
from  sight. 

About  a  dozen  years  ago,  I  was  seated  at  the  dinner-table 
at  Willard's  in  Washington  with  an  elderly  gentleman,  with 
full,  white  hair  and  whiskers,  clear  eyes,  ruddy  face,  and  in  ap- 
parently perfect  health.  In  his  manner,  tone,  and  face  there 
was  something  so  strangely  familiar  to  me  that,  addressing 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  205 

him,  I  said :  "Pardon  me,  sir,  but  are  you  not  General  Robert 
C.  Schenck?"  He  courteously  admitted  that  he  was.  I  intro- 
duced myself,  and  his  evident  satisfaction  upon  being  recog- 
nized by  one  of  his  war-time  "boys"  is  still  a  treasured  mem- 
ory. In  the  many  conversations  which  followed,  he  distinct- 
ly recalled  the  old  days  and  the  officers  of  the  war  from  Grant 
down ;  he  reviewed  his  old  corps,  divisions,  brigades,  regiments, 
and  a  few  companies;  but  of  course  did  not  recollect  me  as 
one  of  his  private  soldiers.  Once  I  referred  to  the  news- 
paper accounts  of  his  long,  serious  illness,  and  congratulat- 
ed him  upon  his  complete  restoration  to  health,  when  the  old 
General  said;  "Yes,  sir,  I  was  very  ill  for  a  long  time; 
and  to-day  attribute  my  complete  recovery  to  a  remedy  sug- 
gested by  a  German  physician  within  that  time;  for  in  over 
two  years  not  a  thing  ever  went  into  my  stomach  except  ripe 
tomatoes  and  buttermilk." 

Jo  O.  SHELBY,  Adrian,  Missouri,  was  born  at  Lexington, 
Kentucky,  in  1830,  of  a  long  line  of  distinguished  ancestors 
on  both  sides  of  his  house.  In  boyhood  there  he  was  the  play- 
fellow of  his  cousins,  B.  Gratz  Brown  and  Frank  P.  Blair,  all 
descended  from  a  great  lawyer  named  Benjamin  Gratz,  who 
was  a  contemporary  and  at  the  bar  quite  the  equal  of  the  great 
Henry  Clay.  Each  of  the  three  cousins  named  came  to  this 
State  and  in  the  Civil  War  attained  unique  national  distinction : 
Shelby  as  a  commander  of  Southern  forces  and  later  a  U.  S. 
marshal;  Blair  as  a  soldier  and  U.  S.  senator;  and  Brown 
as  a  U.  S.  senator  and  later  Governor  of  Missouri.  So,  long 
years  before  either  was  called  hence,  the  world  came  to  know 
each. 

All  these  men  became  prominent  factors  in  the  campaign 
of  1860,  v/hen  the  total  presidential  vote  of  Missouri,  the  State 
•of  their  adoption,  aggregated  165,518.  Then  in  the  year  fol- 


206  RECOLLECTIONS 

lowing,  the  Big  War  commenced.  Brown  and  Blair  stood  by 
the  Union,  while  Shelby  went  South.  The  passage  of  the. 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill  in  1854  and  the  subsequent  troubles 
along  the  border  had  made  nearly  every  Missourian  a  fight- 
er. So  when  the  war  came  on,  Missouri  sent  into  the  Union 
Army  over  109,000  and  into  the  Confederate  Army  over 
90,000,  and  at  all  times  kept  its  .quota  full  in  the  two  contend- 
ing armies,  and  that,  too,  without  a  draft,  which  was  ordered 
and  enforced  on  both  sides  in  all  other  States.  This  aggregate 
exceeds  our  total  vote  of  1860,  but  this  is  accounted  for  by 
the  further  fact  that  the  Civil  War  was  fought  by  boys.  Out 
of  the  2,800,000  in  our  Army,  more  than  2,000,000  were  under 
the  age  of  twenty-one  years  at  the  date  of  their  enlistment. 
Upon  this  subject  I  once  gave  these  statistics  and  added: 
"Such  is  the  proud  fighting  record  of  Missouri  in  the  Civil 
War — a  record  without  precedent  or  parallel  in  the  history 
pf  the  world."  After  completing  his  academic  course  at 
Transylvania  University  in  Kentucky  and  at  a  Philadelphia 
college,  Shelby  came  to  Lafayette  County,  Missouri,  in  1849, 
participated  in  the  border  troubles  of  1854  to  1860,  and  at 
the  outset  promptly  entered  the  Southern  Army  in  1861.  He 
had  no  military  education,  but  had  sense,  scholarship,  enthu- 
siasm, courage,  dash,  and  these  attributes  made  him  a  natural 
soldier,  a  great  leader  of  men.  After  engaging  with  his  com- 
mand in  nearly  every  battle  in  the  West,  from  Wilson  Creek, 
Lexington,  and  Pea  Ridge,  down  to  the  last  battle  in  this  de- 
partment, General  Shelby  refused  to  surrender  his  command, 
and  with  his  men  marched  across  the  frontiei  and  into  Old 
Mexico  to  sustain  the  dying  cause  of  Emperor  Maximilian. 
He  there  tendered  his  sword  and  command  to  that  ill-fated 
prince,  but  Maximilian  perhaps  then  saw  the  end,  and  the  gen- 
erous offer  was  declined.  Soon  after  this  and  in  1867  the 


SOLDI UR  FRIENDS  207 

Emperor  was  shot  to  death  at  Queretaro,  his  unfortunate  Em- 
press, Carlotta,  was  sent  to  a  mad-house,  while  Shelby  and  his 
men  one  by  one  returned  to  the  States.     Throughout  the  war 
that  prince  of  the  pen,  the  late  Major  John  X.  Edwards,  whom 
I  knew  well  as  a  loving  and  lovable  character,  was  Shelby's 
adjutant.     An  account  of  Shelby's  Army  career  came  from 
the  gifted  Edwards  many  years  ago,  and  is  still  celebrated 
throughout  the  West  and  South  as  a  most  interesting  book,  un- 
der the  title  of  "Shelby's  Expedition  to  Mexico." 

True  soldier  as  he  was,  after  his  return  from  Mexico,  no 
one  for  a  moment  doubted  the  intense  loyalty  and  earnest 
devotion  of  General  Shelby  to  the  constitution  and  flag  of 
his  country.  While  he  was  the  U.  S.  Marshal  for  this  dis- 
trict, it  became  his  duty  to  protect  some  railroad  property 
during  a  strike,  and  of  course  he  did  it.  A  personal  and 
political  friend  of  his,  who  was  then  Governor  of  Missouri, 
entered  his  solemn  protest  to  this  action  and  closed  by  de- 
manding to  be  informed  why  he  did  so.  This  demand 
aroused  the  fighting  blood  of  General  Shelby.  His  first  written 
answer  was  couched  in  the  surt  language  of  the  soldier  and 
read :  "Go  to  hell  i"  but  on  reflection  he  modified  this-some- 
what  and  wired  back  to  the  Governor  this  reply :  "I  am  act- 
ing under  the  orders  of  Uncle  Sam ;  ask  him." 

Many  old  Confederate  soldiers  came  out  to  hear  my  ad- 
dress on  "Egyptian  and  American  Slavery,  a  comparison; 
Moses  and  Lincoln,  a  parallel,"  on  Lincoln's  birthday,  February 
12,  1897  (see  Appendix).  In  going  to  the  hall  that  night  a 
friend  told  me  that  my  friend  Shelby  was  then  reported  dy- 
ing at  his  home  down  in  Bates  County.  So  in  opening  my 
talk  I  had  something  to  say  to  my  ex-Confederate  friends  pres- 
ent, and  then  paid  a  tribute  to  General  Shelby. 


208  RECOLLECTIONS 

Shelby  died  next  morning,  and  I  feel  that  no  apology  is 
needed  for  here  printing  this  letter  to  his  widow : 

"Bereaved  Madam: — Standing  alone  within  the  darker 
shadows  of  the  people's  grief,  as  a  private  soldier  who  fol- 
lowed the  Stars  and  Stripes,  I  desire  to  tender  to  the  wife  and 
children  of  the  most  gallant  and  courtly  of  the  many  distin- 
guished officers  who  followed  the  Stars  and  Bars  whom  I  have 
known,  my  earnest,  heartfelt  sympathy  and  tenderest  con- 
dolence. I  also  thank  you  for  the  honor  you  have  done  me 
in  selecting  me  as  one  of  the  honorary  pall-bearers  for  your 
distinguished  dead. 

"  'He  is  not  dead,  but  sleepeth.'  As  long  as  those  who 
knew  and  loved  General  Jo  Shelby  live,  so  long  will  he  live 
in  their  memories  and  affections,  and  when  they  are  gone, 
will  survive  in  the  memories  of  their  descendants.  So  long 
as  the  English  language  is  written,  that  long  will  the  story  of 
our  great  war  be  printed  and  read.  Without  the  name  of  Jo  O. 
Shelby  that  history  cannot  be  written  or  read,  for  he  is  in 
and  a  conspicuous  figure  of  that  war.  True,  the  lion  heart 
has  ceased  to  beat ;  the  glorious  eyes  that  flashed  as  those  of 
the  eagle  upon  the  field  of  battle,  that  were  happy  as  a  laugh- 
ing girl's  in  merriment,  and  melted  to  tears  over  the  sorrows 
of  the  poor  and  oppressed,  are  now  closed  in  death.  True, 
the  body  now  lies  cold  before  us,  but  the  heroic  soul  of  Jo 
Shelby  lives !  So  loyal  was  he  to  cause  and  commander ;  so 
imbued  and  inspired  with  the  genius  of  military  spirit ;  so  active 
and  eager,  that  when  his  spirit  left  the  clay  and  took  its  place 
in  that  camp  beyond  the  river  where  white-winged  Peace  for- 
ever reigns,  and  battle-flags  are  forever  furled,  the  soldier-soul 
sought  out  the  commander  and  asked  the  favor  of  an  imme- 
diate assignment  to  duty.  If  bewildered  by  the  sudden  flight, 
he  may  have  sought  the  Stars  and  Bars ;  but  if  calm  and  col- 
lected as  I  have  known  him,  he  sought  the  old  Stars  and 
Stripes.  So  while  the  great  chieftain  as  we  knew  him  will  be 
known  no  more,  yet  I  cannot  believe  that  General  Jo  Shelby  is 
dead.  Of  all  the  distinguished  Missourians  who  knew  and 
loved  your  soldier-knight,  I  have  known  but  one  who  could 
have  done  full  and  complete  justice  to  his  memory — and  Major 
John  N.  Edwards  is  dead." 

After  the  General's  funeral,  I  said  this  of  him  in  the  public 
prints  of  the  day: 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  209 

"During  the  Civil  War  I  served  as  a  Union  soldier  in  the 
Eastern  Army  and  had  heard  but  little  of  General  Shelby  un- 
til, at  the  close  of  that  mighty  struggle,  I  came  west  and  lo- 
cated at  Gallatin,  Mo.  There  one  night,  soon  after  my  ar- 
rival, I  heard  one  of  his  old  troopers  singing  'Shelby's  Mule.' 
The  memory  of  the  rare  old  days  of  danger,  daring,  and  glory, 
aided  and  abetted  by  sundry  drinks  of  good  old  whisky,  caused 
this  rough-rider  to  throw  his  whole  soul  into  that  song  with 
most  charming  abandon  and  enthusiasm,  and  I  shall  never 
forget  the  voice  nor  the  manner  of  the  man  as  he  roared  out 
the  chorus  of  the  song  in  these  words: 

"Hi,  boys!  make  a  noise; 

The  Yankees  are  afraid; 
The  river  's  up,  Hell  's  to  pay, 
Shelby  's  on  a  raid.' 

"In  cold  type  it  will  not  appear  startling,  but  to  hear  one 
of  Shelby's  men  sing  it  under  such  auspices,  any  old  soldier 
would  halt  and  listen. 

"In  my  soldier  days  I  had  done  some  tall  marching,  both 
after  and  before  Jackson,  Imboden,  Mosby,  Jenkins,  and  other 
Confederate  commanders  in  Virginia;  had  been  startled  by 
their  bugle-calls,  alarmed  by  the  'Rebel  yell,'  and  had  heard 
their  songs  of  defiance  and  triumph,  but  never  heard  any- 
thing like  'Shelby's  Mule.' 

"Later  on,  the  more  familiar  I  became  with  the  war  his- 
tory of  Missouri,  as  well  as  with  the  character  and  achieve- 
ments of  Shelby,  the  more  I  desired  to  meet  and  know  the 
gallant  soldier  who  could  inspire  in  his  men  such  loving 
devotion  and  heroism,  and  who,  as  the  star,  had  played  such 
a  conspicuous  part  in  war's  wild  romance  and  tragedy  on  the 
border. 

"With  all  its  trials,  hardships,  and  dangers,  there  is  to  the 
soldier  a  charm  and  fascination  about  war  that  is  absolutely 
unknown  to  all  other  walks  of  life.  The  soldier  who  has 
been  through  a  war  readily  understands  the  attributes  of  that 
commander  whose  'boys,'  with  smiles  on  their  faces,  with  ring- 
ing and  enihusiastic  cheers,  will  follow  him  into  the  very  jaws 
of  death  and  storm  the  portals  of  hell  if  need  be,  and  I  think 
that  no  soldier  ever  knew  Irm  without  recognizing  such  a 
commander  in  brilliant,  dashing,  sagacious,  and  gloriously 
courageous  Jo  Shelby. 


210  RECOLLECTIONS 

"My  desire  to  see  and  know  the  man  was  not  gratified 
until  we  met  at  the  Democratic  National  Convention  at  St. 
Louis  in  1876,  where  I  happened  to  be  present  at  the  first  meet- 
ing between,  and  personally  introduced,  Shelby  and  Fitzhugh 
Lee.  Each  had  been  a  fighter,  a  general,  a  leader  of  men, 
and  each  had  been  the  idol  of  the  men  who  followed  him  to 
victory  or  death  beneath  the  Stars  and  Bars.  But  great  as 
they  were  in  camp  and  march  and  field,  to  me  it  seemed  that 
in  fair,  gallant,  courtly,  and  chivalric  speech,  as  well  as  in 
their  splendid  interchange  of  soldierly  courtesies,  neither  could 
have  found  any  rival  save  in  the  other.  Two  valiant  knights 
had  just  stepped  out  of  the  dim  and  distant  past,  met  in  the 
then  present,  and  each  at  once  recognized  in  the  other  a  soldier 
and  a  gentleman,  chivalrous,  tender,  tried,  and  true. 

"From  that  time  on  to  the  closing  scene  I  knew  Shelby 
intimately.  He  was  noble,  manly,  generously  loving  and  lov- 
able, with  a  kindliness  and  charm  of  manner  seldom  seen.  Dar- 
ing, dashing,  terrible  even  as  he  may  have  been  as  a  stern  com- 
mander leading  the  wild  charge  to  victory  or  death,  yet  in 
the  charmed  circle  of  home,  or  surrounded  by  his  fellows, 
his  heart  was  as  that  of  a  little  child.  An  intense  Southern 
partisan  in  war,  with  Shelby,  as  with  all  true  soldiers,  that  war 
closed  at  Appomattox,  its  red  fires  became  ashes  by  the  terms 
between  Grant  and  Lee,  and  then  Shelby  became  so  loyal  to 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  that  from  the  hour  he 
buried  the  Confederate  flag  in  the  turbid  waters  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  as  he  was  going  to  Old  Mexico  from  his  native  land 
on  the  fourth  day  of  July,  1865,  up  to  the  hour  of  his  death, 
Jo  Shelby  would  as  gladly  have  laid  down  his  life  for  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  as  during  the  four  years  of  war  he  would  have 
laid  it  down  for  the  Stars  and  Bars. 

"When  General  Jo  Shelby  was  mustered  out  of  life  in 
February,  1897;  when  his  splendid  soldier  soul  laid  aside  the 
body  as  a  uniform,  no  more  fitting — I  was  one  of  his  pall- 
bearers, and  on  the  other  side  of  the  casket,  just  opposite  to 
me,  was  that  rugged,  one-armed  Confederate  veteran,  Colonel 
Elijah  Gates,  of  St.  Joseph.  Bearing  our  burden  with  tender 
loving-  hands  out  to  Forest  Hill  cemetery,  this  grizzled  and  gray 
old  Confederate  colonel,  who  had  kept  step  to  "Dixie,"  ana 
I,  who  had  kept  step  to  the  music  of  the  Union,  again  kept  step, 
but  this  time  together  and  to  the  "Dead  March" ;  and  together 
we  mingled  our  tears  over  the  casket  between  us,  for  it  con- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  211 

tained  all  that  was  mortal  of  the  dead  soldier  and  friend  whom 
in  life  we  knew  and  loved  so  well." 

JOHN  H.  SHOWAI/TER,  Fremont,  Nebraska:  This  name  is 
well  along  in  my  alphabetical  list,  is  not  so  familiar  to  the 
public  as  are  the  names  of  many  of  my  military  heroes,  but 
he  was  my  first  Captain  in  1861  and  the  next  year  was  my 
Major  That  a  better  disciplinarian,  abler  commander,  more 
iearless  soldier  never  wore  the  blue,  is  not  so  much  to  my 
present  purpose  as  is  the  other  fact  that  I  want  to  talk  a  little 
•on  paper  anyway  and  tell  you  of  my  experiences  with  just  a 
few  of  "Showalter's  boys,"  of  our  border-land  troubles,  and  of 
those  earlier  days  of  war.  With  brave,  sagacious  officers  in 
command,  American  soldiers  will  fight  anything,  anywhere. 
But  when  I  speak  of  war,  I  refer  to  the  big  war  of  '61-5,  and 
do  not  mean  to  underrate  the  men  engaged  in  any  subsequent 
conflict. 

At  the  mere  thought  of  our  war,  though,  whether  he  wore 
the  blue  or  the  gray  then,  every  veteran  is  liable  to  stop  and 
think.  The  longer  he  reflects  upon  the  days  of  his  youth  and 
his  glory,  the  firmer  becomes  his  conviction  that,  in  some  re- 
spects, he  is  not  unlike  old  Lexington,  the  greatest  horse  of 
his  day  and  the  one  which  every  Kentuckian  worshipped. 
When  long  past  all  his  usefulness  and  old  and  blind,  Lexing- 
ton was  shown  in  the  ring  once  more  at  the  great  Derby  races, 
where  he  had  won  immortal  fame.  He  was  there  being  led 
around  the  inner  track  by  a  negro  attendant ;  the  band  played 
"My  Old  Kentucky  Home"  while  all  the  people  cheered  both 
horse  and  air.  When  he  was  directly  opposite  the  grand-stand, 
the  gong  was  rung  and  the  starter  shouted,  "Go!"  Then  it 
was  that  old  Lexington,  forgetting  his  years,  infirmities,  and 
blindness,  thrice  clashed  around  the  ring  as  of  yore,  dragging 
his  black-  attendant  along  with  him,  while  all  Kentucky  cheered 


212  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  wept.  So,  at  the  sound  of  the  once-familiar  command,  the 
squeal  of  the  fife,  the  rattle  of  the  drum,  or  the  bugle-call, 
the  old  soldier  stands  at  "attention,"  in  the  tinkling  bell  of 
memory  hears  and  answers  the  call,  catches  the  step,  and 
marches  along  to  the  music,  in  fancy,  after  all,  only  a  boy 
again.  From  life's  rosy  morning  until  its  golden  sunset,  the 
once  soldier  remains  a  "boy."  While  halting  in  his  slow  march 
to  the  bivouac  of  the  dead  to  rest  and  dream  and  maybe  sleep 
in  the  quiet  hush  of  the  wayside,  the  failing  eye  and  faltering 
step  of  the  veteran  admonish  him  that  the  great  column  of 
human  progress  is  ever  moving  onward — he  is  alone — the  army 
is  moving — has  passed  ! 

Showalter  (no  one  ever  dared  to  address  him  that  way 
back  in  war-times)  was  born  many  years  before  I  was,  is 
no  longer  young,  and  to  note  his  erect  form  and  light  step 
now,  one  wouldn't  think  he  was  verging  on  his  fourscore  years, 
but  he  is.  The  lowering  war-cloud  of  early  spring  of  1861 
found  him  as  the  first  lieutenant  of  the  Marion  Guards. 
He  was  loyal  to  the  old  flag,  but  Captain  William  P.  Thomp- 
son, the  commander  of  that  company,  along  with  most  of  its 
members,  espoused  the  Southern  (or,  as  they  called  it,  "the 
State  rights")  side  of  the  impending  controversy  and  were 
Secessionists.  So,  while  the  Captain  was  temporarily  absent, 
one  fine  Saturday  evening,  Showalter  marched  this  company 
out  into  a  grove  near  by,  and,  as  he  had  the  lawful  right  and 
power  to  do  under  the  statutes  of  the  commonwealth  ot  Vir- 
ginia, mustered  the  whole  command  out  of  the  service.  This 
was  at  Fairmont,  the  seat  of  justice  of  Marlon  County,  in 
what  is  now  West  Virginia.  The  State  (really  the  Confed- 
erate) government  held  the  complete  military  possession  of 
our  county  until  late  in  May  of  that  year.  Flags  new  and 
strange  floated  in  the  soft  Southern  breeze  everywhere,  and 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  213 

it  was  only  a  few  of  the  young  and  reckless  who  dared  to  wear, 
even  concealed  from  the  public  gaze  under  lapels  of  coat  or 
vest,  miniature  representations  of  the  old  Stars  and  Stripes. 
With  plumes  and  banners  gay,  most  of  my  boyhood  friends, 
including  my  elder  brother,  promptly  enlisted  to  fight  in  the 
war  for  the  South,  and  Southern  soldiers  could  be  seen  every- 
where marching,  counter-marching,  drilling,  shouting,  and 
singing. 

The  first  cannon-shot  of  our  great  Civil  War  was  fired 
on  Fort  Sumter,  in  the  harbor  at  Charleston,  South  Caro- 
lina, on  the  morning  of  April  12,  1861.  America  was  startled, 
dazed,  and  shocked.  The  world  knows  the  final  results.  But 
none  save  those  who  then  lived  upon  the  border  line  can  ever 
understand  or  appreciate  the  force  and  effect  which  that  act 
there  had.  All  was  doubt,  unrest,  dread,  uncertainty  theie. 
The  peace-loving  people  then  chose  the  side  upon  which  like 
a  stone  wall  each  was  to  stand  thereafter.  The  good  house- 
wife forgot  to  spin;  the  farmer,  professional  man,  merchant, 
workman,  all  ceased  their  efforts ;  the  world  stood  still ;  war, 
nothing  but  war,  was  talked  of  or  thought  about.  At  last, 
under  General  McClellan,  the  Union  forces  came  to  the  "Burnt 
Bridges,"  on  the  B.  &  O.  Railroad,  destroyed  by  the  oppo- 
sition nearby  our  home.  When  this  glad  news  came,  I  recall 
now  just  where  I  lay  beneath  the  shade  of  a  chestnut  tree 
near  the  house,  how  I  arose  and  tried  to  give  three  cheers 
for  the  Union,  and  how  the  sound  of  my  voice  died  away — I 
broke  down  and  cried  like  a  child. 

Through  all  this  trouble,  the  quiet,  gallant,  dapper  Sho- 
walter  remained  firm,  but  as  alert  as  a  terrier.  Then  he 
soon  procured  a  recruiting  commission  from  some  unknown 
authority  and  enlisted  his  company,  and  in  July,  1861,  I  became 
one  of  his  "boys."  The  loyal  ladies  of  Fairmont  presented 


214  RECOLLECTIONS 

us  with  a  heavy  and  beautiful  silk  flag  inscribed  with  the  ring- 
ing words,  "Be  Strong,  Be  Brave,  Be  True."  We  learned 
to  sleep  on  the  soft  side  of  the  earth,  drill,  and  become  soldiers 
at  Camp  Carlisle,  on  the  Island  at  Wheeling.  This  was  only 
seventy  miles  from  home,  but  at  the  age  of  sixteen  I  had  never 
before  been  out  of  my  native  county,  and  while  failing  to 
express  his  happy  thought  in  like  language,  yet  I  felt  about 
that  long  journey  as  did  one  of  our  farm-hands  who  was  later 
drafted  and  sent  to  the  same  camp,  only  to  be  rejected;  for 
upon  his  return  home  he  said  to  father :  "I  '11  tell  you  what, 
Mr.  McDougal,  if  this  world  is  as  big  the  other  way  as  it  is 
towards  Wheeling,  it 's  a  whopper !"  Showalter's  men  had 
the  good  or  bad  fortune  to  be  out  of  the  historic  battles 
of  the  war,  and  throughout  the  trouble,  as  a  veteran  once 
said,  "jist  n't";  yet  a  large  volume  would  not  contain  the  per- 
sonal experiences  of  old  Company  A,  in  the  four-years  war. 
So  only  a  few  of  the  many  things  that  occurred  to  one  private 
soldier  of  that  company  are  here  reproduced. 

Early  in  September,  1861,  Showalter  took  his  company  on 
a  scouting  expedition  in  our  home  county  up  near  Worth- 
ington.  The  scheme  was  to  fight  a  force  of  the  enemy.  Our 
command  reached  the  scene  a  little  after  midnight,  and  all 
knew  there  was  a  Confederate  block-house  just  over  and  pro- 
tecting the  gap  in  the  hills.  Later  on  an  officer  would  have 
been  court-martialed  and  dismissed  from  the  service  for  the 
commands  there  given ,  but  all  were  young  in  war  then  and 
everything  went.  When  mustered  in,  I  was  No.  17  in  the 
rear  rank,  and  how  1  happened  to  be  in  front  that  night  no 
one  ever  thought  to  inquire;  but  there  I  was.  Our  officers 
conceived  the  plan  of  capturing  that  block-house,  filled  with  liv- 
ing, bieathing,  but  then  sleeping  "Johnnies."  So  we  deployed 
around  it  m  single  hie,  and  at  the  command  "Halt,"  given  in 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  215 

a  whisper,  the  rear  man  stopped  and  looked  and  listened,  with 
fixed  bayonet  and  gun  ready  to  fire.  This  alone  was  enough 
to  scare  a  boy  to  death,  and  there  is  one  I  know  of  that  the 
night  came  near  finishing.  When  this  block-house  was  thus 
surrounded,  I  was  the  last  man  left  with  the  commanding  officer 
when  we  reached  the  door,  and  the  order  was  given  me,  still  in 
a  whisper,  "Go  in."  With  the  sense,  strength,  and  sand  of  ma- 
turer  years,  I  don't  now  know  what  might  have  happened.  To 
obey  my  superior  meant  sure  death.  I  was  not  looking  for 
that,  and  wanted  to  run.  Home  and  friends  passed  in  won- 
drously  rapid  review.  The  pride  of  a  soldier  and  obedience  to 
orders  prevailed,  and  I  entered.  Black  cats  were  never  so  dark 
as  the  inside  of  that  block-house.  A  feather  would  have 
knocked  me  down,  a  cry  of  "Boo !"  would  have  killed  me.  No 
one  opposing,  I  grew  brave  and  strong  and  lustily  punched 
around  with  my  bayonet.  The  enemy  had  fled ;  not  a  soul  was 
in  that  block-house.  In  the  congratulations  of  comrades,  it  was 
fortunate  for  me  that  darkness  hid  my  still  pale  face  and  quak- 
ing knees.  The  "boys"  never  knew  how  near  Company  A  then 
was  to  its  first  failure,  and  I  never  told  them. 

On  January  I,  1862,  our  command  was  transported  in 
cattle  cars  by  the  B.  &  O.  Railroad  over  the  Alleghany  Moun- 
tains from  Grafton  to  New  Creek.  Lordy,  how  cold  it  was 
and  how  the  wind  whistled  on  the  summit!  Through  the 
rain  and  sleet  and  snow  we  marched  the  next  day  over  to 
Greenland  Gap  on  the  South  Branch  of  the  Potomac,  twenty- 
three  miles.  Tired,  hungry,  cold,  we  were  ascending  a  moun- 
tain road  that  afternoon,  when  from  the  opposite  side  a  Union 
woman  displayed  at  a  gable-window  a  tiny  silken  flag  of  our 
country.  Led  by  Captain  showalter,  the  boys  lustily  cheered 
this  unexpected  sight  in  the  enemy's  country  until  the  old  woods 
rang  again  with  our  shouts,  and  then  for  miles  all  marched 


215  RECOLLECTIONS 

along  as  if  on  dress  parade.  That  little  flag  represented  the 
honor,  majesty,  and  glory  of  our  country  and  the  boys  were 
glad  and  gay  again.  At  nightfall  we  reached  and  were  quar- 
tered in  the  old  Dunkard  church  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Gap. 
The  "chinkin'  and  dobbin'  "  had  fallen  away  and  a  yearling 
calf  could  have  been  thrown  through  its  openings,  but  the 
big  wood  fires  were  warming  and  cheerful.  In  the  advance 
guard  on  the  march  there,  I  had  not  felt  myself,  but  never  sus- 
pected the  cause  until  the  next  day  the  boys  carried  me  on 
a  cot  down  the  Gap  and  placed  me  in  the  second  story  of  a 
white  frame  house  just  below  the  church,  in  charge  of  Brink- 
ley  Snodgrass,  of  our  company,  as  my  nurse — I  had  measles. 
For  days  they  kept  me  there  and  that  disease,  so  fatal  to  many 
soldiers,  nearly  killed  me.  My  only  nourishment  was  warm 
rye  whiskey,  fresh  from  the  still,  and  from  that  day  to  this 
I  have  never  taken  kindly  to  old  rye,  although  other  brands 
have  not  been  barred.  The  day  before  our  command  left  the 
the  Gap,  a  young  lady  sent  me  a  cherry  pie,  and  that  was  the 
first  and  only  thing  given  me  there  that  tasted  like  anything. 
When  good  old  Brinkley  had  gotten  the  measles  "out"  and 
my  condition  demanded  the  most  careful  nursing,  one  early 
morning  I  heard  a  courier  on  horseback  dash  past  our  house 
on  the  National  Pike  and  up  to  the  church.  My  eyes  were 
bandaged;  I  saw  nothing;  but  told  my  nurse  there  was  music 
in  the  air  on  some  account.  We  heard  the  boys  breaking 
camp,  and  just  then  a  messenger  rushed  into  the  room  and 
said:  "Get  ready  at  once  for  a  forced  march  back  to  New 
Creek."  "Stonewall"  Jackson,  with  seventeen  thousand  Con- 
federate troops,  had  come  onto  the  South  Branch  at  Romney, 
and  by  sending  a  detachment  twelve  miles,  where  we  had  to 
march  eighteen  miles,  might  have  cut  us  off  and  captured 
our  entire  command.  That  caused  the  rush.  Well,  as  the 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  217 

boys  were  marching  by,  I  was  carried  out  and  loaded  into  a 
farm-wagon,  and  we  fell  into  the  rear.  Soon  it  began  to  rain, 
then  sleet  and  snow,  and  with  blankets  and  his  own  broad 
back  Brinkley  shielded  me  from  the  storm  that  day.  I  recol- 
lect every  turn  in  the  road,  ill  as  I  was,  until  we  turned  to 
the  left  and  stopped  for  the  night  at  the  Reese  plantation, 
within  our  lines  at  New  Creek.  From  that  hour  the  world 
was  dark;  I  was  delirious.  When  I  became  conscious,  Sho- 
walter  had  placed  me  in  a  hotel  in  the  town,  and  within  a 
tew  days  more  sent  me  home  to  Marion  County  He  and 
everybody  else  thought  I  would  die ;  but  I  was  back  again  with 
the  boys  early  in  March,  and  here  I  am  to-day.  Out  of 
this  Greenland  Gap  experience  arose  many  incidents,  some  of 
which  are  worth  mention: 

Probably  no  man  in  the  Army  of  the  Upper  Potomac  had 
as  good  a  nose  for  whiskey  as  old  Hall  Fleming  of  our  com- 
pany. No  matter  whether  we  were  in  camp  in  the  mountains, 
or  on  the  march,  or  in  imminent  danger  from  the  enemy, 
Hall  smelled  "red  licker"  from  afar,  and  got  it.  He  and  two 
of  the  other  boys  stole  out  of  the  church  past  the  guard  at 
the  Gap  one  night,  went  to  a  mountain  still-house,  and  after 
amply  supplying  the  inner  man,  started  back  to  camp  with  a 
jug  full  of  the  needful.  In  the  darkness,  or  other  confusion, 
they  hid  this  jug  in  the  grapevines  covering  a  stone  fence, 
but  could  never  locate  the  place.  To  myself  and  other  good 
friends  they  often  bewailed  this  loss,  for  the  liquor  was  good. 
But  a  friend  of  theirs,  John  J.  Chisler,  of  Fairmont,  was  shoot- 
ing deer  about  the  Gap  only  a  few  years  ago  and  accidentally 
discovered  and  (I  trust)  utilized  the  remaining  contents  of 
that  long-lost  jug.  It  must  have  been  nectar  for  the  gods. 

About  ten  years  ago,  I  was  taking  depositions  in  the 
office  of  my  lawyer  friend,  Silas  H.  Corn,  at  Cameron,  Mis- 


218  RECOLLECTIONS 

souri.  He  had  served  his  country  as  a  soldier  about  Green- 
land Gap,  and  I  was  telling  him  of  my  serious  illness  there 
and,  among  many  other  incidents,  about  the  girl  that  sent 
me  that  cherry  pie.  "No,  I  cannot  recall  her  name  now,"  I 
said;  "but  it  was  Tabb,  or  Babb,  or  something  like  that,  and 
Brinkley  told  me  she  lived  just  at  the  lower  end  of  the  Gap." 
Business  over,  I  accepted  his  courteous  invitation  to  dinner, 
and  was  there  introduced  to  his  good  wife.  When  a  girl, 
she  had  lived  with  her  people  just  below  the  Gap ;  her  maiden 
name  was  Miss  Babb,  and  she  proved  to  be  the  young  lady 
who  had  sent  me  that  cherry  pie. 

In  1880  I  spent  several  months  with  my  wife  and  chil- 
dren in  the  Alleghanies  and,  among  other  places,  at  Green- 
land Gap,  where  we  were  the  guests  of  Adam  Michael.  He 
was  the  Union  man  who  had  hauled  me  in  his  wagon  over  to 
New  Creek  in'62,  and  seemed  to  recollect  everything  pertain- 
ing to  the  war.  The  house  in  which  I  lay  sick  was  still  stand- 
ing, but  the  old  church  was  gone,  burned  later  in  the  war.  One 
Sunday  we  went  past  its  site  up  the  road  to  see  the  deer  in 
their  park  and  pay  our  respects  to  our  old  Unionist  friend, 
Mr.  Idleman.  This  good  old  Dunkard  was  then  blind  and  on 
crutches.  After  a  general  talk  on  war-times,  Mr  Michaels 
inquired :  "Do  you  remember,  Mr.  Idleman,  the  first  sick 
Union  soldier  we  then  had  here  at  the  Gap?"  The  sightless 
eyes  moistened  as  the  patriarch  replied:  "Yes,  indeed,  very 
well;  he  had  measles  down  at  Captain  Schell's;  he  was  very 
sick  the  day  you  drove  away  with  him ;  I  never  saw  or  heard 
of  him  again,  and  suppose  the  poor  boy  died  soon  after  he 
left."  "On  the  contrary,"  said  Mr.  Michaels,  "that  boy  did 
not  die;  he  is  back  in  this  country  with  his  family  now,  re- 
visiting the  old  scenes,  and  the  fact  is  that  at  this  minute  he 
stands  before  you."  The  crutches  were  thrown  aside;  the 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  219 

withered  arms  of  the  old  man  were  extended  as  he  arose,  and 
tears  were  in  his  unseeing  eyes  and  tremulous  voice  as  he 
simply  said,  "Come  to  me."  All  others  silently  left  the  room. 

In  March,  1862,  two  brothers  named  Barker,  who  belonged 
to  the  Confederate  forces,  captured  a  member  of  our  com- 
pany, named  George  W.  Fleming,  at  his  home  near  Texas, 
in  my  native  county,  and  twice  hung  him  up  by  the  neck,  but 
finally  got  drunk,  and  George  escaped  them,  only  to  die  from 
the  shock. 

When  this  news  reached  our  camp  at  Fairmont,  a  squad 
of  about  twenty  of  us,  under  the  command  of  Sergeant  Baylis, 
were  sent  out  to  arrest  the  faction  that  captured  our  comrade ; 
we  marched  up  Tygart's  Valley  to  the  scene  of  the  capt- 
ure and  in  that  neighborhood  made  the  two  Barkers  prisoners 
of  war.  In  charge  of  guards,  they  were  started  on  foot  to  our 
camp,  but  were  found  dead  at  the  side  of  the  B.  &  O.  Rail- 
*road  tracks.  The  guards  reported  that  the  Barkers  had  started 
to  run  and  escape,  when  they  were  shot  and  killed;  but  this 
I  always  doubted,  and  still  think  they  were  probably  murdered 

in  cold  blood. 

While  at  Barker's  house  on  the  bluffs,  we  saw  a  number 
of  the  enemy  emerge  from  a  house  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
river  and  run  into  a  nearby  ravine  en  route  to  the  main  com- 
mand beyond  the  mountain.  One  Confederate,  more  bold 
or  with  less  brains  than  his  comrades,  ran  straight  up  the  hill- 
side in  plain  view.  Our  command  was  drawn  up  in  line  and 
all  fired  at  this  fleeing  "Johnny"  except  myself.  My  Minie 
musket  only  snapped.  I  put  on  a  fresh  cap,  raised  the  sights 
of  my  gun  to  1,000  yards,  and  fired.  The  man  was  by  this 
time  nearly  half  a  mile  away,  across  the  river,  and  of  course 
it  was  only  a  chance  shot,  but  at  the  crack  of  the  gun  the  man 
fell  and  rolled  down  the  hillside  in  the  mud— dead,  all  thought. 


220  RECOLLECTIONS 

We  improvised  a  raft,  crossed  Tygart's  Valley  River,  ate  our 
flitch  and  hard  tack,  and  on  our  way  over  the  mountain  looked 
for  the  dead  Confederate  soldier  in  vain.  We  saw  in  the  mud 
where  he  had  fallen  and  struggled,  and  then  by  his  tracks 
and  blood  followed  his  trail  up  to  the  fence  by  the  woods; 
here,  in  the  heavy  rain,  dead  leaves,  and  timber,  all  trace  of 
the  fellow  was  lost,  and  we  marched  on  to  a  cabin  over  the 
range.  The  elderly  woman  in  charge  gave  ready  permission 
to  search  the  house,  but  said  her  daughter  was  very  ill  in  bed, 
and  only  made  the  modest  request  that  the  search  be  conducted 
quietly  for  that  reason.  All  this  was  done.  On'  the  bed  we 
saw  a  very  pale  young  mountain  woman,  as  all  supposed,  and 
soon  went  on.  In  the  little  skirmish  which  followed  the  next 
day  a  Southern  soldier,  who  cheered  for  his  cause  and  tor 
Jeff  Davis,  was  killed.  His  name  was  George  Cease  and  he 
had  been  a  blacksmith  at  Boothsville.  Then  another  Southern 
ranger,  named  Ashcraft,  was  shot  and  killed,  and  after  this 
we  returned  to  camp  by  the  way  of  Benton's  Ferry.  After 
the  war  and  in  the  spring  of  1866,  a  man  with  a  bad  limp 
came  to  me  at  Fairmont  and  told  me  he  had  lately  learned 
that  my  shot  from  across  Tygart's  Valley  River  had  broken 
his  hip  in  March,  1862 ;  that  for  an  hour  or  more  he  feared 
his  wound  was  fatal;  and  that  he  finally  managed  to  cross 
the  hill,  and  that  he  was  in  fact  the  soldier  who  was  then  dis- 
guised as  "the  sick  daughter"  in  that  cabin  over  the  brow  of 
the  mountain. 

In  May,  1862,  on  the  Kanawha  campaign  and  while  our 
headquarters  were  at  Roane  Court  House  in  Virginia,  a  lot 
of  us  were  on  scout  under  command  of  Captain  Myers,  of  the 
nth  West  Virginia  Infantry.  For  three  days,  on  corn  meal 
and  water  alone,  we  had  marched  and  skirmished  and  swore. 
After  dark  one  night,  we  thrice  attempted  to  scale  a  mountain 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  221 

pass,  but  could  not  get  through  to  attack  the  enemy  in  the 
morning,  on  account  of  the  trees  and  brush  which  they  had 
placed  in  our  way.  The  night  had  grown  desperately  cold,  but 
we  dared  not  make  a  fire,  for  that  was  against  orders  and  we 
were  in  the  enemy's  country.  Hungry,  cold,  tired,  discouraged, 
about  midnight  we  lay  down  for  a  little  rest  on  the  banks  of 
the  Kanawha,  covered  only  by  overhanging  clouds  and  rubber 
poncho  tent  blankets.  The  river  was  high  and  the  gurgle  and 
swish  of  its  waters,  the  stillness  of  that  dark,  dismal  night,  are 
with  me  now.  For  once  in  my  life,  there  was  no  ray  of  light 
in  that  night,  and  to  me  the  whole  world  looked  black. 
"Spooning"  (as  we  had  often  to  do  then)  with  Corporal  Bog- 
gess,  and  colder  than  charity,  I  whispered  this  to  him:  "Frank, 
if  I  were  at  home  and  had  as  good  a  place  to  sleep  in  as  my 
dog  has  to-night,  I  'd  stay  there  and  the  Union  might  go  to 
hell."  In  his  quiet  way,  old  Frank  chuckled  and  said: 
"Never  mind,  my  boy;  it  will  probably  be  warmer  for  all  of  us 
tomorrow."  And  it  was,  for  early  we  crossed  the  mountain 
and  before  night  had  three  sharp  little  fights. 

In  1893  1  wrote  up  a  full  account  of  the  second  of  these, 
under  the  title  of  "The  Story  of  Lys  Morgan,"  and  it  then 
had  wide  publication.  Lys  was  an  old  school-boy  friend  of 
mine  and  was  a  Confederate  soldier  in  that  battle.  We  wound- 
ed and  captured  him.  And  there,  too,  I  am  sorry  to  add, 
I  shot  and  killed  my  only  man,  as  far  as  I  ever  knew,  of  that 
war.  But  we  met  in  battle.  It  was  his  life  or  mine,  and  I 
shot  first. 

That  in  the  wild  tragedy  of  war  the  boys  sometimes  had 
a  taste  of  comedy  will  appear  from  this  further  incident  of 
the  last  fight  of  that  Sunday:  In  our  company  we  had  one 
.good,  pious  preacher,  Corporal  Morgan.  He  seemed  very 
old  to  us  then,  but  he  must  have  been  in  his  early  forties, 


222  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  before  the  war  had  spent  his  time  in  reading  his  Bible, 
preaching  the  gospel,  and  shooting  game.  He  prided  himself 
especially  on  the  fact  that  he  was  a  good  shot ;  but  he  was  more, 
for  he  was  a  good  soldier  and  sometimes  gave  us  a  good  ser- 
mon. As  the  youngest  and  probably  worst  boy  of  our  com- 
pany, I  had  given  this  good  man  no  end  of  mental  worry, 
and  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  warn  me  to  flee  the  wrath  to  come 
and  become  generally  a  model  man.  Usually  well  toward  the 
front,  the  afternoon  found  me  among  the  stragglers  at  the 
rear  of  our  party.  As  our  command  was  marching  around 
the  brow  of  a  mountain  there  suddenly  came  to  my  ears  that 
rattle  of  musketry  up  in  front  which  no  soldier  can  ever  for 
get,  and,  boy-like,  I  wildly  rushed  up  and  was  soon  in  the  thick 
of  the  fight.  Even  then  the  enemy  had  commenced  slowly 
to  fall  back,  and  as  I  ran  past  I  saw  Corporal  "Stevie"  with 
a  dead  shot  at  a  Confederate  major,  heard  him  out-swearing 
our  army  in  Flanders,  and  at  a  glance  saw  why  his  musket 
would  not  fire — he  only  had  it  at  half  cock.  Without  stop- 
ping, I  yelled  to  him  to  cock  his  gun,  and  on  I  went.  Late  that 
evening  we  halted  for  the  night  by  the  brink  of  the  river  and 
went  into  camp.  Corporal  "Stevie"  hunted  me  up,  took  me 
aside,  and  said :  "Henry,  you  overheard  me  use  some  mighty 
bad  language  at  that  last  little  fight  we  had  back  on  the 
mountain."  I  answered :  "That 's  all  right,  Corporal ;  under 
the  same  circumstances  I  would  have  said  the  same  thing." 
"That  's  all  right,"  he  said;  but  quickly  added:  "No,  no,  no, 
I  don't  mean  that ,  but  you  would  have  said  it.  Now,  I  want  to 
make  a  bargain  with  you.  You  have  not  been  the  best  boy  in 
the  company  and  I  have  often  felt  it  my  duty  to  reprove  you, 
for  I  think  a  great  dqal  of  you;  but  no  matter  what  you  say 
or  do  hereafter,  I  '11  not  open  my  mouth  about  it,  if  you  'It 
promise  not  to  mention  while  I  live  the  bad  things  you  heard 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  223 

me  say  back  in  that  fight."  Of  course  I  promised,  and  we 
shook  hands  on  it,  rolled  up  in  our  blankets,  and  slept.  Until 
death  mustered  him  out  of  life  no  word  escaped  me  concerning 
his  soldier-talk  on  the  mountain,  and  the  peace  between  us  was 
most  profound.  Only  a  few  years  ago,  in  my  office  here, 
I  received  from  his  devoted  son,  who  was  also  a  war  comrade, 
a  telegraphic  message  which  told  the  sad  (yet  to  me  pathetic) 
story  in  these  words:  "Father  found  dead  in  his  bed  this 
morning.  The  finger  of  God  touched  him  and  he  slept." 

Long  before  he  passed  under  the  rod,  every  old  soldier 
trusts  that  this  little  lapse  of  Corporal  Morgan  was  forgiven, 
forgotten,  and  blotted  out  by  a  tear,  as  were  similar  words  em- 
ployed by  that  other  good  man,  Uncle  Toby.  When  the  bul- 
lets were  buzzing,  not  many  soldiers  ever  stopped  to  consider 
whether  the  words  they  were  likely  to  utter  were  learned  in 
the  Sunday-school.  Indeed,  this  conviction  of  the  boys  was 
once  voiced  by  Sergeant  Antonio  Raffo,  of  my  regiment,  when 
in  describing  to  me  a  little  battle  led  by  Captain  Larkin  Pier- 
point,  of  our  Company  E,  he  told  me  that  the  Captain  swore 
dreadfully.  I  said :  "Raffo,  your  description  of  that  fight  is  all 
right  except  in  this  respect:  Captain  Pierpoint  is  a  Meth- 
odist class-leader  at  home  and  doesn't  swear."  With  blazing 
eyes,  the  doughty  Sergeant  exclaimed:  "Dond't  svear!  dond't 
svear!  how  te  hell  coot  he  been  a  captain  in  a  fight  unt  not 
svear?"  This  same  Antonio  Raffo  was  reared  as  a  singer  in 
his  native  Tyrolean  Alps,  served  through  the  Crimean  War  in 
one  of  the  ten  Italian  regiments,  came  to  America  and  became 
a  student  of  the  gallant  Colonel  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth,  entered 
our  Army  early  in  '61 ;  and  was  the  best  drilled  as  well  as  the 
handsomest  soldier  in  our  regiment;  sang  like  a  bird,  had  a 
musical  voice  a  stranger  would  turn  to  hear  again,  was  an 
cfficer  in  the  ijrth  West  Virginia  Infantry  after  my  muster- 


224  RECOLLECTIONS 

out,  and  is  now  a  rich  and  retired  old  chap,  living  up  at  Seneca, 
Kan.  From  our  war  days  up  to  1906,  I  neither  saw  nor  heard 
of  my  friend.  Then  I  heard  that  an  Antonio  Raffo  lived  near, 
and  at  once  wrote  him,  describing  his  rank,  company  and  reg- 
iment, and  his  personal  appearance  and  uniform  on  the  morn- 
ing he  turned  in  his  report  at  our  headquarters  late  in  1863, 
and  inquiring  if  he  was  indeed  my  old  comrade.  Soon  after 
this  a  soldierly-looking  old  gentleman,  with  white  hair  and 
moustache,  stepped  into  my  office  here  and  saluted.  On  the 
instant  I  exclaimed,  "My  old  comrade,  Antonio  Raffo,  by  all  the 
gods  of  war!"  Our  talk  lagged  at  first,  and  the  starting-point 
was  hard  to  establish.  We  were  like  that  German  and  Irish- 
man who  served  in  the  same  company  in  the  war  and  for  the 
first  time  since  its  close  met  only  a  short  while  ago.  Being  a 
little  the  quicker,  the  Irish  comrade  finally  inquired:  "Say, 
Dutchie,  phat  iver  become  of  that  Irish  sergeant  of  our  com- 
pany, Pat  O'Ruark,  phat  was  kilt  at  Shiloh?"  After  smok- 
ing for  a  long  while  in  silence,  the  German  at  last  took  his  pipe 
from  his  mouth  and  slowly  answered :  "He  vas  still  det  al- 
retty."  But  by  and  by  Raffo  and  I  blew  all  the  dead  ashes 
from  the  coals  of  the  years,  the  old-timey  camp-fire  again 
blazed  and  smoked  in  the  old  way.  Among  other  incidents, 
Raffo  told  me  that  he  had  lived  near  me  ever  since  '66,  and 
that  for  many  years  up  at  Seneca,  at  every  soldiers'  reunion  or 
other  gathering  he  there  swung  across  the  street,  with  a  hand 
pointing  down  to  his  home,  a  long  banner  inscribed,  "Free 
quarters  and  grub  here  for  every  comrade  of  6th  West  Va. 
Inf.,"  and  that  in  forty  years  I  was  the  only  man  of  our  old 
regiment  he  had  ever  met.  Then  he  and  I  fought  it  all  over 
again,  and  again  the  war  .seemed  real  to  at  least  two  veterans. 
My  own  personal  estimate  may  be  too  high,  but  it  now  seems 
probable  that  in  the  several  millions  of  soldiers  on  both  sides 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  225 

engaged  in  our  war,  as  many  as  half  a  dozen  did  not  at  least 
think  "damit"  in  almost  every  fight;  the  others  said  it. 

In  the  summer  of  1862  we  were  ordered  from  the  Kana- 
wha  country  to  Weston,  Virginia,  and  there,  at  Eland's  old 
Hotel,  I  was  laid  low  for  a  few  days  with  camp  fever.  My 
nurse  was  comrade  John  B.  Tallman,  who  had  come  into 
Showalter's  company  at  Grafton,  in  November,  1861,  from 
the  Alleghany  Mountains  up  in  Barber  County,  and  who  knew 
and  performed  every  duty  of  a  soldier  without  one  murmur. 
He  was  not  learned,  did  not  know  what  fear  meant,  and  was 
a  natural-born  nurse.  Officers  called  to  see  me,  but  they  em- 
barrassed John,  who  only  yawned  and  cracked  the  joints  of 
his  fingers.  He  went  west  after  the  war,  and  I  knew  only  that 
this  great,  good  soul  lived  somewhere  out  in  Kansas ;  but  while 
we  had  not  met,  yet  neither  had  forgotten.  In  January,  1898, 
our  eldest  son,  Harry,  died  at  twenty-three.  David  did  not 
worship  Absalom  more  than  I  this  son,  and  to  me  he  was  as 
perfect,  yet  without  the  faults  of  the  king's  favorite  boy.  Just 
before  we  laid  him  away  out  at  Forest  Hill  Cemetery,  I  was 
alone  in  our  parlor,  for  the  last  time,  with  all  that  was  left  of 
this  fair  and  favored  son.  The  portieres  were  drawn,  the 
doors  closed,  and  I  was  thinking  of  all  the  dear  dead  boy  had 
been  to  me  and  of  what  he  would  have  been,  when  there  came 
a  touch  at  my  elbow.  I  looked  around,  and  there  stood  old 
Tallman  !  He  took  my  proffered  hand  and,  in  his  quiet,  simple, 
mountain  way,  only  said :  "I  saw  by  the  paper  that  you  were 
in  trouble,  and  I  come  to  you  now  just  like  I  went  to  you  in 
the  war." 

While  we  were  encamped  up  the  river  and  across  from 
the  present  Weston  Lunatic  Asylum,  our  scouts  brought  in 
the  usual  exaggerated  report  that  the  enemy,  4,000  cavalry 
with  a  battery  of  artillery  under  command  of  General  Albert 


226  RECOLLECTIONS 

G.  Jenkins,  was  rapidly  approaching  our  camp.  The  Confed- 
erates probably  had  1,500  men,  while  our  righting  command 
numbered  about  400.  With  their  usual  bluster,  the  command- 
ing officer  said :  "Stand  your  ground ;  fight  till  hell  freezes 
over!"  and  we  poor  devils  could  only  obey.  We  were  under 
arms  all  night,  and  everybody  looked  for  a  great  battle.  The 
preparations  for  fight  went  on.  Before  daylight  in  the  morn- 
ing, as  I  now  recall  it,  of  Sunday,  September  I,  1862,  I  was 
placed  in  command  of  the  west  end  of  one  of  those  long  cov- 
ered wooden  bridges,  frequent  then  in  Virginia,  with  a  small 
squad  of  men,  and  told  to  hold  it.  We  barricaded  our  end 
of  that  bridge  and  watched  and  waited.  At  last,  we  heard  the 
Confederate  cavalry  dashing  up  the  main  street  of  the  town, 
heard  the  clatter  of  their  horses'  feet,  the  rattle  of  sabers  and 
guns  as  a  detachment  of  them  swung  around  the  old  Bailey 
tavern  and  down  toward  our  bridge.  We  heard  everything, 
but  saw  nothing,  for  it  was  still  dark.  On  they  came,  and  the 
firing  commenced.  This  was  getting  rapid  and  hot;  but  our 
men  there  were  cool,  collected,  and  thought  of  nothing  but 
fighting  it  out  until  we  could  fill  that  bridge  with  dead  and 
wounded  horses  and  men.  Personally,  I  never  telt  better;  the 
men  were  doing  splendidly  and  all  was  going  just  right. 
Without  a  moment's  warning,  however,  an  order  came  from 
our  commander  just  then:  "Cease  firing  and  fall  back  to  the 
hill-top  west  of  the  Asylum."  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  that 
order  made  an  arrant  coward  of  every  man  at  the  bridge. 
Just  how  it  all  happened  I  never  knew,  but  I  do  know  that  of 
our  squad  I  was  the  first  man  on  the  top  of  that  hill ;  and,  to 
employ  the  words'  of  some  other  retreating  soldier,  the  only 
reason  I  ran  was  because  I  couldn't  fly.  Lord,  but  I  was 
scared  stiff!  Just  as  officers  were  re-forming  our  scattered 
command  in  the  woods  on  the  top  of  that  hill,  the  early  morn- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  227 

ing  sun  tipped  its  tallest  forest  trees,  while  our  camp  was 
enshrouded  in  the  heavy  fog  which  overhung  like  a  pall  all 
the  valley.  But  from  present  danger  we  were  safe  there,  and 
I  breathed  easier.  The  sound  of  bugle-calls  and  the  tramp  of 
their  horses  convinced  us  that  the  enemy  were  on  every  public 
road  leading  out  of  Weston ;  and  from  their  shouts  we  knew 
they  must  be  burning  and  destroying  our  abandoned  camp. 
Darkness  was  below,  but  by  this  time  we  were  in  the  broad 
sunlight  of  the  hilltop,  and  I  happened  to  stroll  away  from 
the  boys,  down  into  the  blue  grass  of  the  open,  heard  bullets 
hit  near  me,  but  saw  nothing,  and  was  cursed  back  into  ranks 
by  an  officer.  Then  came  the  order  to  fall  back  to  Clarksburg 

o " 

twenty-three  miles  away.  Right  there  on  that  retreat  we  did 
the  one  great  stunt  of  our  soldier  lives  in  tall  walking  to  Clarks- 
burg; but  we  made  it  before  nightfall.  Our  losses  in  killed, 
wounded,  and  captured  were  trifling,  those  of  the  enemy  even 
less,  and  it  turned  out  later  that  General  Jenkins  only  made 
that  raid  to  secure  recruits  and  horses,  and  really  cared  but 
little  for  men. 

Only  a  few  years  ago,  in  traveling  eastward  on  the  B.  &  O. 
Railroad,  a  mild-mannered,  genial- faced  gentleman  boarded 
our  train  at  Clarksburg  and  happened  to  s>it  alongside  of  me 
in  the  crowded  Pullman.  From  the  pleasant  conversation 
which  followed,  I  soon  learned  that  he  was  a  lawyer,  always 
lived  at  Weston,  and  had  been  a  major  in  the  Confederate 
service  in  our  little  brush  there  in  '62 ;  while  he,  of  course, 
found  out  that  I  was  also  there  and  on  the  other  side.  In 
relating  many  incidents  of  that  engagement,  the  Major  said: 
"The  most  amusing  memory  of  the  war  occurred  there  that 
morning.  When  you  Yanks  retreated  10  ihe  lop  of  the  hill 
back  of  the  Asylum,  you  all  were  in  .he  bright  sun,  while  we 
were  in  the  fog  at  your  camp.  We  could  3ee  the  sunlight 


,  228  RECOLLECTIONS 

flashing  on  your  brass  buttons  and  bayonets,  but  you  could 
not  see  us.  Well,  sir,  while  we  were  raising  the  devil  gener- 
ally and  burning  your  camp,  sir,  a  dam  fool  boy  strayed  off 
from  your  command  and  stood  alone,  gaping  down  toward 
your  camp  in  the  foggy  valley.  We  fired  at  him  singly  and 
by  platoons,  but  he  stood  there  unconcerned  for  a  long  time, 
and  finally  rejoined  your  command  just  before  you  com- 
menced to  retreat."  Laughingly  I  replied :  "You  are  right, 
sir,  in  all  of  these  details,  but  you  will  pardon  me,  for  I  was 
that  dam  fool  boy." 

Among  the  101  young  Virginians  who  enlisted  under  Cap- 
tain Showalter,  was  Charles  D.  Baylis.  He  was  born  and 
reared  over  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  near  White  Post.  Like 
myself  and  many  others  of  that  company,  his  people  had  beeu 
slave-holding  planters  and  he  was  Southern  in  all  else,  save 
politics,  while  most  of  his  people  went  South.  His  rare  ge- 
niality, unfailing  good  humor,  and  devotion  to  country  and 
flag  were  superb.  With  us  the  sole  question  was:  Is  the 
Union  or  the  State  supreme?  Right  or  wrong,  and  how  it 
all  came  about,  are  outside  the  question  now ;  but  we  decided 
for  the  Union  early  and  fought  it  through.  After  the  war, 
Baylis  drifted  westward,  became  a  cattle  king  in  the  Black 
Bird  Hills  of  Nebraska,  there  married  an  educated,  sweet- 
faced  lady  member  of  the  Omaha-Osage  tribes  of  Indians,  and 
died  there  in  1886.  Since  then  I  have  often  met,  fished  with,, 
and  been  employed  as  a  lawyer  by  his  widow  and  their  two 
sons,  now  down  in  Oklahoma,  and  only  two  years  ago  visited 
the  grave  of  my  old  comrade  in  the  cemetery  up  at  Fender, 
Nebraska. 

The  last  Confederate  raid  through  my  native  county  was- 
composed  of  cavalry  under  the  command  of  General  Jones. 
This  force  captured  our  county  seat  on  April  29,  1863.  Ser- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  229 

geant  Baylis  at  that  time  happened  to  be  in  command  of  a 
squad  of  about  40  enlisted  men  of  my  company  at  the  bridge 
v.hich  spans  the  Monongahela  River  a  mile  above  Fairmont. 
Hearing  of  the  near  approach  of  the  enemy,  Sergeant  Baylis 
added  to  his  soldier  command  a  large  number  of  Home  Guards 
and  defended  the  strong  position  he  had  taken  with  such 
splendid  skill  and  ability  as  to  repulse  every  Confederate 
charge  from  early  morning  until  late  that  afternoon.  Mil- 
ton Welsh,  who  is  now  a  prominent  citizen  of  Kansas  City, 
told  me  only  the  other  day  that  in  that  Fairmont  fight  he 
was  a  cavalry  captain  in  a  Maryland  regiment  and  there  com- 
manded in  three  separate  charges  upon  our  position,  only  to 
fall  back  as  often.  In  the  afternoon,  however,  a  Confed- 
erate battery  was  planted  on  the  hill  across  the  river,  and, 
as  it  could  easily  rake  our  position,  Sergeant  Baylis  knew  the 
annihilation  of  his  people  must  be  the  result  and  discreetly 
ran  up  the  white  flag.  Noting  the  surrender,  General  Jones 
gave  the  curt  order,  "March  the  Yanks  down  to  the  Court 
House,"  and  he  and  his  staff  officers  galloped  away.  In  half 
an  hour  after  they  were  there  seated  at  the  counsel  table,  in 
command  of  his  variously  clad  soldiers,  home  guards,  militia- 
men, and  citizens,  Baylis  marched  into  that  temple  of  justice, 
saluted  Jones,  and  formally  surrendered  for  parole,  when  this 
colloquy  ensued:  "Who  is  in  command  of  the  Yankees?" 
inquired  Jones.  "I  am,  sir,"  answered  Baylis.  Glancing  at 
the  veteran's  chevrons,  but  not  believing  his  eyes,  Jones  next 
asked,  "What  is  your  rank,  sir?"  And  to  this  Baylis  sa 
luted  again  and  answered,  "I  am  a  sergeant,  sir."  General 
Jones  looked  the  stalwart  soldier  over  frcm  head  to  foot  and 
then  slowly  said,  "By  God.  sir.  you  ought  to  be  a  general!" 
I  still  have  a  copy  of  the  roll  of  our  old  company  set 
up  and  printed  in  a  captured  and  abandoned  newspaper  office 


230  RECOLLECTIONS 

at  Weston,  Virginia,  when  we  got  there  off  the  Kanawha  cam- 
paign in  July,  '62.  This  work  was  then  done  by  Joe  Gehring 
and  George  Greiner,  two  bright  printer  boys  of  our  company. 
Poor  George  was  later  killed  in  one  of  the  battles  around 
Winchester  in  the  valley,  but  that  might  have  happened  to 
any  of  us,  as  we  knew  at  enlistment.  This  roll  is  now  yellow 
with  the  years,  but  we  shared  our  beans,  blankets,  and  hard 
tack  with  these  boys  and  I  am  glad  I  kept  it,  worthless  to  oth- 
ers, priceless  to  me.  I  could  to-day  take  it  up  and  relate  many 
a  true  story  of  every  man  there,  from  captain  down  to  wagon- 
master,  and  each  would  be  of  interest  to  old  soldiers;  but 
who  else  would  now  read  or  understand  it?  No  one,  save 
a  few  mere  wrecks  strewn  along  the  banks  of  the  ever-broad- 
ening, deepening  river  of  human  life.  But  as  a  few  of  the 
old  boys,  and  the  descendants  of  many,  are  still  living,  in 
their  memory  I  here  reprint  that  roll ; 

ROLL  OF  COMPANY  A,  SIXTH  REGIMENT,  VIR- 
GINIA INFANTRY  VOLUNTEERS  (UNION). 

WESTON,  VA.,  July  24,  1862. 

OFFICERS — COM  M ISSIONED. 

JOHN  FISHER,  Captain. 

JOSEPH   N.   PIERPOINT,   ist  Lieutenant. 

JACOB  F.  GREINER,  2d  Lieutenant. 

OFFICERS — NON-COMMISSIONED. 

Philorus  B.   Compston,   Orderly   Sergeant. 

DUTY   SERGEANTS. 

George  D.  Black,  ist;       Harmar  F.  Fleming,  3d; 
Jabez  L.  Hall,  2d;  Charles  D.  Baylis,  4th. 

CORPORALS. 

Stephen  Morgan,  ist;          B.  Frank  Boggess,  5th; 
Benjamin  F.  Google,  2d;     H.  Thornton  Fleming,  6th; 
Andrew  J.  Toothman,  3d ;  Ben.  Sed.  Pitzer,  7th ; 
Isaac  Moffat,  4th ;  Sidney  W.  Satterfield,  8th ; 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS 


231 


MUSICIANS: — Aaron  Thorn,  Fifer; 

James  W.  Showalter,  Drummer. 
WAGONER: — Wesley   Davis. 


PRIVATES. 


Bail,  Benjamin  P. 
Black,  John  L. 
Boyd,  James. 
Brown,  Richard  P. 
Bunner,  Presley. 
Carder,  John. 
Carder,  Thomas. 
Clark,  George 
Google,  John. 
Constable,  William. 
Dawson,  Alpheus. 
Detrow,  George. 
Downey,  Eli. 
Eyster,  Charles  C. 
Farrell,  Daniel. 
Ferel,  Hial  C. 
Fisher,  Wesley. 
Fleming,  Charles  I. 
Fleming,  George  W. 
Fleming,   John   E. 
Fleming,  Josiah  W. 
Gehring,  Joseph  T. 
Griffin,  William. 
Greiner,  George  O. 
Hawkins,  Frederick. 
Hershberger,  Joseph 
Hewett,  Hiram. 
-Hill,  F.  Marion. 
Hoult,  Elijah  H. 
Jones,  Andrew. 
Jones,  Sanford. 
Knight,  F.  Marion. 
Lambert,  Joseph  H. 
Lane,  Albert  G. 
Largent,  George. 
Loudon,  George  W. 
Mallory,  George  K. 
Martin,  Joseph  A. 


McDougal,  Henry  C. 
McElfresh,  Theodore  T. 
Megill.  David  F. 
Mellor,  Frank. 
Menear,  William  B. 
Morgan,  Jeffrey  J. 
Morgan,  Oliver  P. 
Powers,  John  T. 
Prichard,  J.  Newton. 
Prickett,  Thornton  T. 
Reynolds,  Joel  B. 
Satterfield,  C.  Frank. 
Schoudt,  Jacob. 
Shahan,  James. 
Shahan,  Minor. 
Shearer,  Francis  M. 
Shearer,  George  E. 
Shore,  Raymond. 
Shroyer,  Alexander  I. 
Sipe,  David  T. 
Snodgrass,  Brinkley  M. 
Stansberry,  Justus  H. 
Steele,  Samuel. 
Sturm,  J.  Lee. 
Sultzer,  Amaury  De  La. 
Thompson,  James. 
Tallman,  Tohn  B. 
Toothman,  Eli  B. 
Too^hman,  Waitman  D. 
Turner,  James  W. 
Upton.  James  Riley. 
Vincent.  Riley. 
Waldron,  Patrick. 
Weatherwax,  Edwin  G. 
Wells.  William  D. 
Wilson,  John  R. 
Wilson,  Nuztim  S. 
Winesburg,  Samuel 


232  RECOLLECTIONS 

Martin,  Merryman  A.     Wolford,  James. 
Martin,  Samuel  L.          Wright,  Henry  C. 

Yates,  James  K.  P. 
DEAD: — Cornelius    B.    Carr,    Joseph    Cunningham,    William 

Dodd,  James  Swisher,  Marshall  Yates. 

DISCHARGED  FOR  DISABILITY: — Anthony  C.  Boggess,  Robert 
Hughes,  EH  Hawkins,  James  McCalister. 

Our  company  was  enlisted  at  Fairmont,  in  Marion  County. 
Virginia,  in  July,  1861,  and  mustered  into  the  U.  S.  service 
"for  three  years  or  during  the  war"  at  Camp  Carlisle,  Wheel- 
ing (Island),  Virginia,  on  August  6,  1861. 

OUR   FIELD  AND  STAFF  OFFICERS  ARE: 

Colonel — NATHAN  WILKINSON. 
Lieutenant-Colonel — JOHN  F.  HOY. 
Major — JOHN  H.  SHOWALTER. 
Adjutant — ZENAS  FISH. 
Quartermaster — WM.  H.  ADAMS. 
Surgeon — ERASMUS  D.   S  AFFORD. 
Assistant  Surgeon — JOHN  T.  WHARTON. 
Chaplain — EBENEZER  MATHERS. 

Our  ancient  negro  friend,  John  Jasper,  of  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, preached  loud  and  long  to  convince  mankind  that  "the 
sun  do  move";  but  the  old  soldier  recognizes  the  controlling 
facts:  that  the  world  and  the  people  in  it  will  always  keep  on 
moving;  that  life  is  broader,  better,  longer  than  it  once  was; 
that  while  vanity  or  position  often  fathers  the  false  assump- 
tion that  he  is  still  a  governmental  factor,  yet  that  neither 
the  old  soldier  nor  any  one  else  has  ever  really  been  a  necessity 
to  the  Republic.  No  one  individual,  at  any  time,  is  ever  essen- 
tial to  any  human  government.  Without  him  the  wheels  con- 
tinue to  revolve  and  "the  smoke  goes  up  the  chimney  just  the 
same."  So  it  will  be  until,  "with  his  right  foot  upon  the  sea, 
and  his  left  foot  on  the  earth,"  man's  good  angel  proclaims 
that  time  shall  be  no  more.  But  the  veteran  may  still  console 
himself  in  repeating  this  solar-plexus  blow  administered  by  an 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  233 

olu  comrade  to  a  young  chap  who  twitted  him  on  his  age: 
"Yes,  that 's  so,  but  I  'd  a  damsite  rather  be  a  has-beener  than 
a  never-waser."  The  perversity  of  the  old  soldier  is  still  very 
human  in  its  cussedness;  he  still  feels  impelled  to  do  that 
which  is  forbidden ;  say  to  him/Thou  shalt  not,"  and  straight  • 
way  he  rebels  and  does  it.  Maybe  that 's  why  so  few  obey  the 
commands  of  the  decalogue. 

Looking  back,  too,  it  seems  I  knew  not  only  every  man  in 
my  own  regiment,  but  many  others  as  well.  To  be  near  most 
of  them  again.  I  now  turn  into  and  gaze  upon  graveyards,  for 
only  a  few  of  us  are  left  to  march  the  weary  rounds  of  earth. 
Maybe  you  never  stop  to  think  about  it,  and  no  blame  attaches 
to  you  for  that,  the  time  is  now  so  far  away ;  but  long  service 
in  actual  war  brings  to  the  front  or  conceals  every  angle  in 
the  soldier,  so  that  at  muster-out  the  world  may  easily  recog- 
nize either  the  cringing  coward  or  manly  man  in  every  sur- 
vivor. The  boy  too  good  to  sneeze  out  loud  when  he  enlist- 
ed was  liable  to  develop  into  the  most  expert  chicken  thief  of 
his  mess,  while  the  meanest  and  lowest  often  became  the  best 
soldiers  and  later  on  the  most  carefully  patriotic  citizens.  Bui 
I  must  tell  you  just  this  one  more  incident  in  the  life  of  one 
of  our  Company  A  boys,  and  then  I  '11  quit  and  go  at  something 
else.  This  comrade  is  Benjamin  Sedwick  Pitzer.  We  were  : 

. 

reared  on  adjoining  farms  and  while  boys  attended  the  same 
schools;  he  became  my  superior  officer  during  the  war,  for 
we  enlisted  in  Showalter's  company  on  the  same  day,  he  be- 
came a  corporal,  and  since  the  war  has  lived  on  his  farm  out 
in  Kansas,  while  I  remained  a  private.  In  1888  I  had  to 
lake  depositions  out  in  Colorado,  and  wrote  old  Sed  that  on 
returning  I  would  stop  at  his  place  and  we  would  again  spend 
the  Fourth  of  July  together.  He  met  me  at  the  station  and 
drove  me  to  his  home.  His  wife  and  daughters  were  devo- 


234  RECOLLECTIONS 

tion  itself  and  gave  me  a  royal  good  time,  but  he  and  I  talked 
of  the  past  and  naturally  arose  late  in  the  morning.  That 
was  July  4th  and  the  day  we  two  were  to  spend  together  in 
the  woods  nearby.  I  noticed  that  many  things  were  out  of 
place  and  it  was  nearly  noon  when  we  left  his  house  in  the 
carriage,  but  never  suspected  anything.  We  passed  two  or 
three  good  camping-places  in  the  timber  and  in  vain  I  urged 
the  stop  and  the  talk.  At  last  he  drove  me  into  a  beautifully 
wooded  grove  in  which  were  already  many  hundreds  of  people, 
and  at  its  entrance  a  printed  poster  as  big  as  a  barn  door  an- 
nouncing their  great  4th  of  July  picnic  and  myself  as  the  orator 
of  the  day.  Seeing  that  he  had  again  tricked  me,  I  said  to 
him:  "Now,  look  here,  my  boy,  I  never  made  a  Fourth  of 
July  speech  in  my  life,  don't  know  how,  am  too  old  to  learn 
now,  and  what 's  more,  by  the  holy  Moses,  I  won't  attempt  it !" 
He  saw  that  I  was  in  earnest  and  told  him  the  truth,  but  urged 
me  to  "make  just  a  little  talk  anyway."  His  theory  was  that 
a  lawyer  had  only  to  open  his  mouth  and  it  would  be  filled 
with  good  things ;  while  mine  is,  to  prepare,  study,  think,  and 
then  instruct  as  well  as  entertain.  Still  protesting  that  I  would 
not  make  a  speech,  threatening  to  tell  those  people  of  all  the 
mean  and  funny  events  of  his  life  from  his  birth  to  that  date 
if  he  dared  to  call  me  out,  I  finally  agreed  to  make  a  short 
talk.  Droves  of  people  came  in,  the  grove  filled  up,  the  crowd 
was  called  to  order,  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  read. 
Then  the  "orator  of  the  day"  was  called  for,  and  old  Sed  and 
I  went  together  upon  the  platform.  Frankly  and  fully  I  told 
them  just  how  I  had  been  entrapped  and  spent  the  first  twenty 
minutes  in  describing,  with  many  additions,  all  the  cussedness 
of  that  boy,  from  his  youth  up.  Mention  of  the  day  we  cel- 
ebrate, and  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  Declaration,  were  all 
purposely  omitted.  But,  to  the  delight  of  the  crowd,  my  old 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  235 

friend  was  then  and  there  crucified  in  due  and  ancient  form, 
and  he  had  to  take  it  all.  Hundreds  of  old  soldiers  were  in 
the  audience,  and  after  talking  of  country  and  flag  and  past 
days,  I  warmed  up  and  repeated  a  true  story  of  how,  after  a 
little  skirmish  we  had  away  back  in  March,  '62,  I  lay  on  the 
field  one  morning,  so  weak  from  loss  of  blood  that  I  could  not 
march  with  the  boys  and  carry  my  gun  and  knapsack ;  how 
a  comrade  first  carried  my  accoutrements  and  helped  me  across 
swollen  streams  and  mud-holes,  and  finally  took  up  on  his 
broad  back  and  with  a  giant's  strength  carried  me  for  miles  and 
miles  out  of  the  ground  of  the  enemy  toward  our  own  rendez- 
vous. By  this  time  the  audience  was  in  tears  and  I  was  near 
it ;  but  knew  the  speech  was  great.  When  at  last  the  name  of 
that  comrade  was  given  as  Benjamin  Sedwick  Pitzer,  some 
old  soldier  cried  aloud  just  back  of  me,  and  I  broke  down. 
For  minutes  I  paced  back  and  forth  on  that  platform,  trying 
in  vain  to  pull  myself  together  so  that  I  could  finish.  But 
memory  and  emotions  were  too  strong.  I  could  not  utter 
a  word,  and  tears  were  coming.  So  I  left  the  platform  and 
walked  away  off  and  sat  down  in  the  shade  of  a  tree  to  cry 
it  out.  There  an  arm  was  thrown  over  my  shoulder  in  silence. 
As  best  I  could,  I  looked  around  to  see  who  was  by  my  side. 
It  was  old  Sed  Pitzer,  and  he  too  was  in  tears. 

In  the  summer  of  1862,  Captain  Showalter  was  promoted 
to  be  our  major  and  became  the  commander  of  the  regiment, 
for  Lieutenant-Colonel  John  F.  Hoy  was  then  on  staff  duty 
and  our  colonel  was  in  command  of  our  brigade.  John  Fisher 
then  became  our  captain,  and  Joseph  N.  Pierpoint  and  Jacob 
F.  Greiner  were  our  lieutenants. 

Four  national  holidays  came  and  went  during  that  war, 
and  in  three  of  these  I  was  in  the  Army.  In  notes  of  my 
own  personal  reminiscences  of  the  many  red-letter  4th  of 


236  RECOLLECTIONS 

Julys,  written  some  years  ago,  I  had  a  word  to  say  of  each  of 
these  four  clays,  and  here  reprint  these  notes: 

"1861 :  Celebration  at  Farmington  on  Baltimore  &  Ohio 
Railroad,  four  miles  from  home.  The  Big  War  was  on.  The 
'Army  post  there  was  in  command  of  Captain  Dodd,  Co.  B,  3d 
Ohio  Vol.  Inf.  Flags  flying,  drums  beating,  bugles  sounding 
all  day  long.  Captain  Dodd  and  his  men  all  college  gradu- 
ates, scholars,  and  gentlemen.  They  made  the  speeches  of  the 
day — speeches  breathing  patriotism  and  loyalty  to  country  and 
flag.  A  dance  in  the  afternoon — the  first  regular,  well-con- 
ducted dance  I  ever  saw.  (I  enlisted  on  July  27,  1861.) 

"1862:  Encamped  at  Spencer  (Roane  Court  House), 
Virginia.  Made  a  forced  march  through  the  enemy's  country 
from  Spencer  to  Jackson  Court  House  (distance  36  miles) 
en  route  with  prisoners  of  war,  captured  in  the  then  pending 
Kanawha  campaign,  to  Ravenswood  on  the  Ohio  River.  The 
hottest  day  and  the  longest,  hardest  march  of  the  war  for  me. 
(My  recollections  of  this  day  printed  in  full  in  Kansas  City 
Journal,  May  30,  1893.) 

1863:  Near  Fairmont.  Our  company,  with  a  compa- 
ny of  New  York  engineers,  stationed  at  Long  Bridge,  one 
mile  above  Fairmont  (just  made  West  Virginia  in  June  of  that 
year),  on  the  Monongahela  River,  to  protect  the  bridge 
(wrecked  by  the  Confederates  in  the  Jones  raid  of  April  29, 
'63)  as  well  as  the  surrounding  loyalists.  The  celebration 
was  just  above  the  bridge  on  the  opposite  side  (right  bank)  of 
the  river  from  our  camp.  The  address  of  the  day  was  made 
by  the  Rev.  Moses  Tichenel.  The  only  thing  I  recollect  about 
it  now  is  that  when  wide  open  the  speaker's  mouth  was  square! 
The  afternoon  was  spent  in  swinging  with  the  many  pretty 
girls  then  and  there  in  evidence,  in  a  great  swing  that  in  its 
vast  sweep  carried  us  out  over  the  beautiful  Monongahela. 
The  evening  was  spent  in  sailing  on  the  river,  with  fbese 
same  girls,  in  a  then  famous  boat  made  by  these  New  York 
engineers.  Upon  the  return  of  the  entire  party  to  camp  at 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  237 

about  ten  o'clock  that  night,  the  telegraphic  dispatches  brought 
us  the  first  news  of  the  results  of  the  glorious  victories  of 
our  armies  at  Gettysburg  and  Yicksburg  and  the  camp  went 
wild  with  joy.  One  of  the  impromptu  speakers  at  that  jolli- 
fication made  a  hit  by  asking:  'To  whom  shall  we  Grant  the 
Meade  of  praise?'  That  speaker  was  Jacob  F.  Greiner,  then 
the  second  lieutenant  of  my  company — a  brainy,  scholarly 
German. 

"1864:  Stationed  at  Clarksburg  as  the  chief  clerk  of 
the  brigade  in  the  then  Department  of  West  Virginia,  com- 
manded by  my  colonel,  Nathan  Wilkinson,  but  at  home  'for 
the  Fourth'  at  Fairmont.  Of  all  the  many  occurrences  of  that 
day,  I  now  recall  but  two  things  that  left  a  vivid  recollection: 
First,  that  I  was  in  full  uniform,  resplendent  with  brass  but- 
tons and  gold  braid  and  'cut  a  wide  swath'  among  the  girls; 
and  second,  that  my  elder  sister  Margaret  (Megill)  severely 
rebuked  me  for  neglecting  an  old  sweetheart  and  devoting 
so  much  of  my  time  to  the  new.  They  were  both  lovely  girls — 
the  old  a  blonde  with  most  beautiful  golden  hair  and  perfect 
teeth ;  the  new  a  brunette  with  a  charming  laugh,  superb  eyes, 
and  corkscrew  curls  hanging  over  her  neck  and  down  her 
back.  Perhaps  those  curls  won  my  youthful  affections  for 
the  dayj  but  I  don't  now  recollect  certainly." 

The  old  8th  Corps  later  became  a  separate  command  un- 
der the  designation  of  the  Army  of  West  Virginia,  and  when 
Major-General  George  Crook  was  there  in  command,  Captain 
William  McKinley  was  a  member  of  his  staff.  When  the  So- 
ciety of  that  Army  held  its  twenty-third  annual  reunion  at  Fair- 
mont, in  September,  1900,  Captain  McKinley  and  I  were  both 
invited  to  deliver  addresses,  for  we  were  members  of  that  so- 
ciety and  lawyers  who  were  supposed  to  be  somewhat  accus- 
tomed "to  speak  in  public  on  the  stage."  The  real  reasons  no 
doubt  were,  that  the  Captain  was  then  President  McKinley  and 
I  a  native  of  Marion  County.  Official  business  kept  the  Pres- 


238  RECOLLECTIONS 

ident  at  Washington,  and  I  declined  because  of  a  previous 
engagement  in  Kentucky.  But  business  ended  much  sooner 
than  anticipated,  and  I  reached  Fairmont  on  the  morning  of 
the  last  day  of  that  reunion,  just  to  see  the  boys,  and  not  to 
speak,  for  I  had  declined  that  honor  and  had  prepared  noth- 
ing. It  happened,  however,  that  I  was  advertised  for  a  speech 
that  forenoon,  and  to  follow  that  eloquent,  impassioned  orator, 
George  W.  Atkinson,  who  was  then  the  Governor  of  West  Vir- 
ginia. Without  a  minute  for  thought  or  preparation  and 
against  my  most  solemn  protest,  the  boys  hustled  me  onto 
the  platform  before  about  8,000  people.  Back  in  war-times 
nothing  kept  me  from  running  like  a  jackrabbit  more  than 
once,  except  my  pride,  and  that  attribute  again  kept  me  in  the 
ranks  at  Fairmont.  How,  in  the  providence  of  God,  I  hap- 
pened to  stumble  on  reminiscences  of  '61,  as  the  chairman, 
my  old  friend  and  comrade,  Captain  Ellis  A.  Billingslea,  was 
presenting  me,  I  don't  know  to  this  day.  After  the  stage 
fright  wore  away,  I  got  my  breath,  and  the  stenographer's 
notes,  just  now  received  by  mail,  show  I  closed  this  way: 

"Comrades,  did  you  ever  reflect  that  for  four  long  years 
we  were  actors? — actors  in  the  grandest,  greatest  drama  the 
history  of  the  world  has  ever  seen?  We  had  half  a  conti- 
nent for  a  stage  and  played  to  a  world.  We  were  simply 
members  of  an  army  numbering  nearly  three  millions  of  men 
in  blue,  and  our  destinies  were  moulded  and  guided  by  that 
eminent  soldier,  Ulysses  S.  Grant.  (Applause.)  The  other 
forces,  who  wore  the  gray,  were  commanded  by  the  scarce- 
ly less  eminent  soldier,  Robert  E.  Lee.  While  the  great  re- 
splendent star  which  ruled  over  all,  which  guided  and  con- 
trolled our  armies  and  generals  alike,  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 
(Cheers.)  Whatever  of  success  I  have  attained  in  life,  what- 
ever of  glory,  honor,  or  fortune  I  may  have  achieved,  was 
attributable  to  the  only  period  of  all  my  life  of  which  I  am 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  239 

proud  to-day,  and  that  is  my  service  as  a  private  soldier  in 
trie  Union  Army  during  the  Civil  War. 

"Now,  comrades  and  friends,  far  be  it  from  me  upon  an 
occasion  like  this  to  say  aught  that  could  be  tortured  into 
a  political  reference.  I  believe  with  the  gifted  Kentuckian, 
and  I  have  practiced  on  the  belief  and  do  to-day,  that  my 
country  is  as  high  above  my  party  as  are  the  stars  above  the 
dust!  (Cheers.)  I  believe  the  time  is  now  at  hand  when 
every  man  who  wore  the  blue  and  every  man  who  wore  the 
gray  can  stand  under  the  light  of  heaven  and  say:  'No 
North,  no  South,  no  East,  no  West;  but  UNION  now  and 
forever!'  (Applause.)  I  just  see  now  over  there  my  old 
friend,  John  Veach,  of  Dunkard  Mill  Run.  He  has  been 
my  friend  since  I  was  a  little  bit  of  a  boy,  and  I  recollect  one 
time  I  was  left  sitting  near  his  house  out  on  a  rock  one  dark 
night  while  John  and  some  other  of  the  older  boys  went  home 
with  the  girls ;  and  I  was  nearly  scared  to  death  by  a  screech- 
owl  in  the  limbs  of  the  tree  above.  Well,  we  have  the  same 
kind  of  birds  of  evil  omen  with  us  to-day,  hooting  and  making 
night  hideous — and  day  too,  for  that  matter.  But,  as  God 
is  my  judge,  I  believe  they  are  just  as  harmless  as  was  that 
screech-owl  up  at  John  Veach 's.  (Loud  cheering.)  Wash- 
ington was  under  their  influence  to  a  certain  degree  at  Valley 
Forge,  Jackson  at  New  Orleans,  and  they  troubled,  as  we  all 
know,  the  great  soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  But,  as  I  say  and 
as  I  believe,  the  croakers  are  harmless. 

"When  Washington  unfurled  the  Star-spangled  Banner, 
he  said  it  should  wave,  and  wave  in  triumph  for  a  thous- 
and years.  I  believe  in  tl:e  young  men  of  our  country.  The 
boys  here  (God  bless  them!)  are  the  hope  of  the  country, 
because  on  them  will  rest  the  future  of  our  country.  The 
young  men  of  the  country  sustained  Washington  at  Valley 
Forge  and  Yorktown;  young  men  sustained  Jackson,  Grant, 
and  Lee;  and  I  believe  that  if  the  young  men  of  America  are 
as  true  to  their  flag  and  their  country  as  the  men  of  the  past 


240  RECOLLECTIONS 

have  been,  that  old  flag  will  not  only  wave  a  thousand  years, 
as  predicted  by  Washington,  but  will  wave  till  Time  shall 
chase  the  crumbling  world  out  over  the  broad  quicksands 
of  Eternity!  (Prolonged  cheering.)" 

That  most  old  soldiers  are  without  experimental  knowl- 
edge of  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  young  manhood,  and  seem  to 
have  jumped  directly  from  boyhood  into  old  age,  is  accounted 
for  in  this  way:  We  went  to  the  front  as  mere  boys;  in  the 
Army  had  to  and  did  assume  and  grapple  with  duties  and 
responsibilities  of  mature  manhood ;  at  muster-out  took  up  the 
practical  realities  of  relentless  life  among  our  fellows,  and 
never  once  stopped  to  think  of  the  flight  of  time. 

Business  of  a  political  nature  again  calling  me  to  the 
national  capital  late  this  year  (1909), the  occasion  was  made 
one  of  pleasure  as  well,  and  pleasant  stops  were  made  at  vari- 
ous places.  First  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  where  the  vast  his- 
torical collections  relating  to  the  eventful  life  of  the  great 
Lincoln  were  seen  and  studied  with  pride,  interest,  and  proi'it, 
from  the  Lincoln  home  to  the  Historical  Society  rooms  in  'heir 
capitol  building.  My  next  stop  was  at  the  seat  of  justice  of 
my  native  county,  Fairmont,  West  Virginia.  Here  I  enlisted 
in  the  Union  Army,  but  during  my  stay  met  but  two  members 
of  our  company  that  went  to  the  front  in  July,  '61 — Captain 
John  Fisher,  who  was  then  our  first  lieutenant,  and  Charles  C. 
Eyster.  From  Fairmont  to  Clarksburg  by  trolley  was  a  pleas- 
ant ride,  and  there  I  met  many  men  and  women  whom  I  had 
known  when  stationed  at  their  military  headquarters  in  '63-4, 
in  the  effort  "to  put  down  the  Rebellion."  Two  of  my  anni- 
versaries (December  9th)  were  spent  in  that  town — in  '63  and 
'09 — but  there  is  a  big  difference  between  nineteen  and  six- 
ty-five. Among  my  birthday  presents  this  year  was  a  copy  of 
"The  Daughter  of  the  Elm."  pn  historical  novel  of  long  ago, 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  241 

with  the  scene  laid  in  old  Marion  County.  In  war-times  I  of- 
ten saw  this  same  great  elm  tree  and  only  the  other  day  on  the 
trolley  passed  right  by  its  well-preserved  "stump."  When  a 
boy  I  knew  personally  some  of  the  characters  portrayed  by  the 
writer  of  the  book  and  then  heard  the  story  of  nearly  .all  the 
rest.  At  my  next  stopping-place,  the  B.  &  O.  Railroad  junc- 
tion, about  the  only  two  things  I  saw  that  time  had  not  changed 
were  the  Grafton  House  and  the  old  sycamore  tree  on  the  river 
bank,  where  1  had  tried  to  murder  by  long  boiling  in  a  camp- 
kettle  the  first  installment  of  gray-backs  that  got  into  my  Army 
shirt  in  the  fall  of  '61.  Our  old  camping-ground  was  covered 
with  houses  and  streets,  which  also  encroached  upon  the  ad- 
jacent hills.  Indeed,  one  of  the  many  changes  I  noted  in  West 
Virginia  was  that  since  the  war  towns  and  villages  with  from 
500  to  1,000  population  have  grown  to  be  cities  of  many  thou- 
sands ;  everybody  seems  rich  and  prosperous,  while  many  that 
I  once  knew  as  poor  boys  have  retired  from  active  life  in  ease 
and  affluence,  as  the  result  mainly  of  their  wealth  of  c6al, 
gas,  oil,  water,  and  wood.  People  there  do  not  rush  and  rustle 
as  we  of  the  Middle  West,  but  the  natural  resources  of  their 
country  force  riches  upon  them  all  the  same. 

Since  the  war  I  have  often  been  over  the  old  stamping- 
ground,  but  always  flattered  myself  that  I  was  in  too  much  of 
a  hurry  to  study  these  familiar  scenes.  But  by  this  time  I 
had  learned  that  my  habit  of  rush  and  hurry  was  but  one  of 
the  many  errors  of  earlier  years,  and  so  I  left  home  away 
ahead  of  time,  traveled  leisurely  by  easy  stages,  made  frequent 
stops,  and  "on  the  old  camp-ground"  especially  took  the  time  to 
see  and  know  in  the  light  of  day.  Over  the  old  B.  &  O.  Rail- 
road in  this  way,  from  Wheeling  eastward  to  Harper's  Ferry 
on  the  way  to  Washington,  from  the  Pullman  car  window,  I 
again  passed  through  the  historic  towns  of  Grafton,  Oakland, 


242  RECOLLECTIONS 

Piedmont.  New  Creek  (now  Keyser),  Cumberland,  and  Mar- 
tinsburg,  and  in  a  lazy,  comfortable  sort  of  way,  and  without  a 
shadow  of  fear  of  either  my  superior  officer  or  the  enemy,  saw 
many  places  where  I  had  camped,  drilled,  marched,  fought, 
and  sometimes  run,  away  back  in  the  days  when  I  went  sol- 
diering. One  of  the  many  familiar  and  interesting  sights  on 
this  trip  was  a  large  rock  on  the  line  of  the  railroad  bearing 
this  historical  legend:  "Rosby's  Rock.  Track  closed  Christ- 
mas eve,  1852."  In  constructing  the  road,  its  main  track  was 
laid  westward  from  Baltimore;  but  to  gain  time  its  projectors 
also  laid  track  eastward  from  Wheeling  for  about  twenty 
miles,  and  the  rails  were  joined  at  Rosby's  Rock.  One  of  the 
many  schemes  of  George  Washington  was  to  join  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  by  dredging  rivers,  with  locks, 
dams,  and  canals  on  the  Potomac,  Youghiogheny,  and  Mon- 
ongahela,  to  the  Ohio  River.  This  was  then  known  as  "the 
Potomac  scheme,"  and  on  its  realization  the  great  Washington 
worked,  studied,  and  planned  for  many  long  years.  So  it 
came  about  that  this  great  railroad  had  its  origin  in  the  fertile 
brain  of  the  Father  of  his  country,  and  when  the  tracks  of  the 
B.  &  O.  Railroad  were  closed  at  Rosby's  Rock,  his  dream  came 
true;  not  in  the  way  he  hoped  and  wrought,  for  he  dreamed  of 
waterway  transportation,  while  the  builders  of  that  road  at- 
tained the  same  result  by  the  more  modern  method  of  con- 
necting the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf  by  a  steam 
railroad. 

JOSHUA  THORNE,  Kansas  City,  Missouri.  Born  in  Eng- 
land, reared  and  educated  in  the  South,  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  found  Dr.  Joshua  Thome  in  full  practice  as  a  phys- 
sician  and  surgeon  at  Kansas  City.  His  kindred  adhered  to 
the  Southland,  but  he  was  always  true  to  country,  flag,  and 
constitution.  So  he  became,  and  throughout  the  war  re- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  243 

mained,  in  full  charge  and  control  of  all  field  and  general  hos- 
pital affairs  at  and  about  Kansas  City.  When  the  war  ended, 
TIO  man  did  more  to  cement  and  make  strong  and  great  the 
Union  of  all  our  States  and  peoples. 

His  reading  was  extensive,  he  thought  much,  was  a  will- 
ing student  of  Moses,  Buddha,  Confucius,  Zoroaster,  Mahom- 
et, and  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and,  professing  neither  creed  nor 
dogma,  he  culled  the  choicest  bits  of  wisdom  and  philosophy 
from  all  these,  as  well  as  from  every  other  attainable  source. 

We  were  long  members  of  the  same  G.  A.  R.  Post  in  this 
•city,  and  soon  after  his  death  on  June  12,  1893,  Major  Ross 
Gufnn,  Colonel  Theo.  S.  Case,  and  others  presented  at  our 
Joshua  Thorne  memorial  meeting  most  tender  and  loving 
resolutions  and  talks  respecting  the  life  and  character  of  our 
•dead  comrade.  As  the  chairman  of  that  meeting,  I  then  re- 
sponded, and,  among  other  things,  said: 

"The  attempt  to  add  aught  to  the  beautiful  tributes  of 
Major  Guffin,  and  other  comrades  who  have  so  long  known 
him  whose  memory  we  honor  to-night,  would,  I  know,  end  in 
a  fruitless  effort  to  gild  refined  gold.  Thoughts  and  language 
alike  fail  me.  But  I  must  add  some  poor  tribute  to  the  mem- 
ory of  my  dead  friend. 

"Living,  I  enjoyed  his  friendship;  dead,  with  pleasure 
I  now  recall  the  fact  that  when  overwhelmed  with  the  sorrows 
and  cares  of  others,  when  so  over-worked  and  weary  that  con- 
secutive thought  was  as  irksome  as  the  task  of  the  galley- 
slave,  for  years  and  years  it  was  my  custom  to  close  books 
and  desk  and  seek  that  never-failing  source  of  restful  and 
recreative  light  and  life,  and  therefrom  draw  such  comfort 
and  consolation  as  rarely  comes  to  man,  save  from  heaven. 

"Once  in  his  presence,  the  simple  question  upon  any  given 
subject  was  sufficient  to  put  into  active,  intelligent,  soulful 
motion  the  delicate  yet  powerful  machinery  of  his  clear,  log- 


244  RECOLLECTIONS 

ical  mind;  whether  the  problem  related  to  men.  or  measures, 
history,  morals,  religion,  poetry,  philosophy,  or  what  not,  he 
was  equally  at  home ;  'like  some  vast  river  of  unfailing  source, 
rapid,  deep,  exhaustless,'  his  lofty  thoughts  and  wondrous  the- 
ories unfolded  as  the  opening  of  the  rose,  and  found  incisive 
and  intelligent  expression  in  language  so  lucid  and  so  strong 
that  the  mists  cleared  away,  darkness  became  light,  and  crook- 
ed things  straight. 

"So,  after  the  opening  of  the  subject,  often  have  I  thrown 
myself  upon  his  couch  and  in  dreamy  enchantment  listened 
while  with  learning,  wit,  wisdom,  and  eloquence  he  for  hours 
and  hours,  like  the  sage  and  philosopher,  discoursed.  And 
so  instructive,  refreshing,  and  soothing  these  conversations 
that  to  me  indeed  were  they  'as  the  dew  of  Hermon,  and  as 
the  dew  that  descended  upon  the  mountain  of  Zion.'  Manv 
a  time  when  thus  soul-oppressed  has  'he  brought  me  up  al- 
so out  of  an  horrible  pit,  out  of  the  miry  clay,  and  set  my  feet 
upon  a  rock  and  established  my  goings.' 

"Into  the  care  of  but  few  of  the  sons  and  the  daughters 
of  men  has  the  Beneficent  Giver  of  all  good  .entrusted  such 
subtle  power,  with  touch  so  light,  magical,  and  gentle,  to 
smooth  out  all  the  wrinkles  upon  human  heart  and  brow. 
Indeed,  in  raising  up  the  bowed  down,  healing  the  broken- 
hearted, removing  burdens  of  the  weary  and  "heavy-laden,  such 
an  adept  was  Comrade  Thorne  that,  reflecting  now  upon  the 
softening,  tranquilizing  influence  of  his  words  of  healing  and 
of  balm,  I  recall  in  all  history  but  one  adequate  comparison, 
and  that  in  the  effect  produced  when  upon  the  troubled  Sea 
of  Galilee  the  Master  stood  forth  and  said,  'PEACE,  BE  STILL/ 

"It  was  always  good  to  be  with  him.  One  might  enter 
his  presence  feeling  that  the  world  was  cold,  practical,  cyn- 
ical; yet  never  left  it  without  a  higher  appreciation  of  race, 
kind,  and  self. 

"Dr.  Thome's  attainments  were  at  once  rare,  varied,  and 
vast ;  his  intellectual  grasp  and  powers  of  analysis  marvelously 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  245 

rapid  and  accurate;  his  soul  and  his  imagination  poetic  and 
sublime;  yet,  from  these  apart,  an  irresistible  and  character- 
istic charm  lay  in  his  wide  charity,  modest  generosity,  his  high 
moral,  mental,  and  physical  courage.  His  heart  and  hand  and 
purse  were  always  open  to  the  needy  and  destitute,  and  he 
was,  through  sunshine  and  storm,  in  all  the  troublous  times 
of  the  past,  so  true  and  loyal  to  his  convictions,  country,  and 
friends  that,  while  honored  and  respected  by  all,  yet  ftiose  who 
knew  him  best  either  loved  or  feared  him. 

"Doubl  or  ambition,  hope  or  fear,  might  cause  others  -~< 
waver  and  shake  as  a  shadow ;  but  firm  as  an  oak,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  friends  and  enemies  alike,  stood  our  dead  friend. 

'His  large  and  sympathetic  heart  encircled  humanity; 
his  genial  presence  threw  off  rays  of  purest,  sweetes"  sunshine; 
with  lavish  loving  hand  he  showered  gifts  upon  the  poor,  and 
the  beneficent  influence,  in  the  years  that  shall  be,  of  that  gen- 
erous heart  and  hand,  who  can  measure  ?  How  apt  the  famil- 
iar illustration  of  the  pebble  into  ocean  cast !  First  dappling  up 
the  water,  then  creating  tiny  circles  that  greater  and  wider  ex- 
tend until  at  last  they  break  upon  the  farther  shore.  As  care- 
lessly as  the  little  boy  casts  a  pebble  into  the  water,,  and  as  lit- 
tle heeding  the  ultimate  result,  did  Dr.  Thome  perform  an  act 
of  kindness.  The  same  impulse  moved  each,  and  if  asked 
'Why?'  each  would  probably  have  returned  the  answer,  'Just 
because  I  wanted  to.'  But  so  many  did  his  strong,  brave  words 
of  wise  consolation  lift  up,  so  many  his  benefactions,  so  gen- 
uine, gentle,  and  effective  his  deeds  of  kindness,  so  prolific 
in  lasting  good,  that  the  influence  of  his  hand  and  heart  and 
brain  will  be  felt  until  the  Ocean  of  Eternity  shall  sweep  the 
Island  of  Time  into  oblivion.  'Ulysses  is  dead  and  there  is  no 
one  in  all  Ithaca  to  bend  his  bow.'  Honor  to  the  memory — 
peace  to  the  ashes — rest  to  the  soul  of  Joshua  Thome." 

NATHAN  WILKINSON,  Wheeling.  West  Virginia.  This 
Quaker-fighter-business  man  was  born  in  New  Jersey  a  long 


246  RECOLLECTIONS 

time  ago  and  died  at  his  home  in  Wheeling  in  1889 ;  but  dur- 
ing the  war  he  was  the  colonel  of  my  old  regiment,  command- 
ed a  brigade  toward  the  close,  and  my  last  year  in  the  Army 
was  spent  as  chief  clerk  of  that  brigade ;  during  all  this  time 
we  were  closely  connected  in  war  matters,  as  well  as  socially,  I 
came  to  love  and  revere  him  as  my  military  father,  and  I  can- 
not pass  him  by.  For  to  me,  an  unlettered  youth  from  the 
farm,  he  was  throughout  life  the  embodiment  of  all  that  was 
good,  noble,  generous,  learned,  wise,  dignified,  able,  and  fear- 
less in  man. 

As  a  close,  sagacious,  successful,  accurate  business  man, 
I  have  never  yet  found  his  equal,  and  whatever  of  success  I 
may  have  attained  since  the  war,  I  attribute  to-day  to  his  great 
example  and  wise  training,  for  it  was  he  who  first  taught  me 
the  value  of  accuracy  and  promptness  in  every  undertaking. 
When  first  I  assumed  the  duties  of  my  new  position  in  the 
summer  of  1863,  among  many  other  things,  I  was  required  to 
make  up  from  regimental  and  post  returns  the  official  reports 
of  our  brigade,  and  to  me  they  seemed  as  big  as  a  barn  door 
and  nearly  alt  made  up  of  figures — then,  as  now,  my  pet  aver- 
sion. My  room  was  next  to  his,  and  in  the  compilation  of 
the  last  item  of  our  report,  if  he  heard  me  using  the  eraser 
on  a  single  figure  (and  he  seemed  to  hear  and  heed  every 
sound),  the  order  came,  "Lay  that  sheet  aside,  comrade,  and 
make  out  an  entire  new  report."  The  change  was,  of  course, 
made  as  directed ;  there  was  'no  back  talk,  nor  was  a  single 
figure  inconsequential  to  Wilkinson.  In  all  military  and  bus- 
iness affairs  he  was  as  rigid  and  unyielding  as  any  martinet ;  yet 
in  private  life  no  one  was  more  considerate.  So  it  was  not 
many  months  until  his  ways  were  mine,  and  together  we  con- 
versed, rode  horseback,  consulted,  and  often  called  upon  and 
sang  and  danced  with  the  pretty  girls.  He  was  then  a  wid- 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  247 

ower  and  I  a  boy.  That  he  was  always  a  .adies'  man  was 
evidenced  by  the  fact  that  in  his  long  life  he  had  been  the 
husband  of  five  wives,  and  when  I  visited  him  last,  he  drove 
me  out  to  the  cemetery  at  Wheeling  and  pointed  out  in  the 
Wilkinson  lot  the  graves  of  four  of  these  who  had  passed 
to  the  beyond,  while  his  last  still  survives  him.  Nothing  ever 
escaped  him,  especially  a  lovely  woman.  One  day  down  at 
New  Creek  (now  Keyser),  in  the  spring  of  '64,  after  he  and 
I  had  made  an  inspection  of  outposts,  pickets,  etc.,  he  said  to 
me  at  the  office:  "Henry,  did  you  notice  that  lady  we  passed 
up  at  Reese's?  She  has  a  good  face  and  beautiful  arms." 
Like  a  good  soldier,  I  cheerfully  lied  in  answering,  "No,  sir, 
not  especially."  Well,  this  lady  chanced  to  adhere  to  the 
Union;  was  a  refugee  from  over  in  the  Valley  of  Virginia; 
of  good  blood  and  family;  a  widow,  and  the  Colonel  finally 
married  her.  She  was  his  fourth  wife;  up  to  her  death  I 
often  met  her,  and  nothing  could  be  finer  than  her  devotion 
to  the  dear  old  warrior.  She  could  not  get  his  exact  age, 
and  thought  she  had  him  where  he  must  answer  definitely 
when  the  taker  of  the  census  of  1880  came  around;  but  when 
that  question  was  asked  out  on  his  piazza,  at  home,  without 
batting  an  eye  the  wily  Colonel  answered,  "Past  fifty,"  and  she 
never  did  know.  But  he  told  me  he  was  born  in  1809. 

One  day  while  at  New  Creek  in  the  spring  of  1864,  the 
Colonel  was  called  on  official  business  to  Harper's  Ferry, 
all  staff  officers  were  out  at  nearby  Hawk's  Nest  Cave,  and 
I  was  left  to  run  things  at  headquarters.  A  scout  dashed  up 
with  the  news  that  a  goodly  force  of  the  enemy  were  to  cross 
the  Alleghanies  at  May's  Gap,  thirty  miles  away,  between  mid- 
night and  two  o'clock  the  following  morning,  to  capture  our 
outpost.  Directing  this  courier  to  select  a  fresh  horse  from 
the  corral  and  eat  his  dinner,  saddle  up,  and  then  report  to 


248  RECOLLECTIONS 

our  office,  I  hastily  prepared  an  order  to  our  post  command- 
ant at  Greenland  Gap,  telling  him  all  I  knew,  and  more,  and 
directing  him  how  to  reach  this  Gap,  station  his  men,  and  not 
fire  until  the  Confederate  rear  guard  was  well  into  the  pass, 
and  then  capture  the  entire  party.  I  was  so  expert  in  sign- 
ing the  Colonel's  name  that  all  his  money  in  the  bank  could 
have. been  drawn  or  a  prisoner  of  war  shot  on  that  signature 
of  mine.  So  I  carefully  signed  this  order,  "N.  Wilkinson, 
Colonel  commanding  Brigade,"  and  sent  it  away  with  that 
trusted  scout.  That  night  I  neither  slumbered  nor  slept,  for 
I  thought  the  scheme  might  fail.  Luckily  for  me,  the  plan  car- 
ried ;  the  Confederate  command  at  the  Gap  had  duly  appeared, 
been  gobbled  up,  nearly  every  man  captured,  and  nobody  hurt. 
This  glad  news  came  late  that  afternoon.  I  neither  could, 
nor  did  I,  ever  explain  anything  to  the  staff,  but  when  the 
Colonel  returned,  I  made  to  him  a  clean  breast  of  the  whole 
story.  He  was  grave,  thoughtful,  but  kind,  and  only  said: 
"Never  take  such  chances  again ;  it 's  too  risky."  He  knew, 
and  so  did  I,  that  had  my  scheme  failed,  I  ought  to  have  been 
court-martialed  and  shot.  That  was  only  one  of  the  many 
chances  of  war.  But  success  and  failure  mark  the  wide  dif- 
ference between  revolution  and  rebellion,  and  it  was  no  credit 
to  me  that  my  plan  won.  No  one  but  the  Colonel  and  I  ever 
knew  the  whole  truth  of  the  matter,  and  after  his  gentle  re- 
buke, I  never  again  assumed  such  a  risk. 

For  many  years  the  Colonel  lived  in  the  suburbs  of  Bos- 
ton; he  was  there  the  near  neighbor  and  personal  friend  of 
that  great  expounder  and  defender  of  the  Constitution,  Dan- 
iel Webster,  and  I  have  in  my  library  now  the  complete  works 
of  Webster  in  six  volumes  presented  to  me  by  Wilkinson. 
Southern  in  everything  except  politics,  it  always  nettled  me 
to  hear  the  claim  that  New  England  was  entitled  to  all  the 


SOLDIER   FRIENDS  249 

glory,  honor,  and  credit  for  all  the  patriotism  and  loyalty  of 
our  American  civilization.  They  do  not  yet  comprehend  the 
fact  that  originally  slavery  was  a  national,  not  a  sectional 
sin,  nor  that  at  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution  in 
1789  negro  slaves  were  owned  throughout  this  country;  that 
business  interests,  and  not  sentiment,  guided  our  ancestors; 
that  the  conscience  of  the  Far  North  was  first  awakened  by  a 
knowledge  of  the  fact  that  negroes  could  not  endure  the  rigors 
of  that  climate,  and  this  knowledge  led  them  to  there  first  abol- 
ish slavery.  Further,  the  first  blood  shed  for  American  lib- 
erty was  that  of  a  slave,  held  and  owned  in  Boston.  His 
name  was  Crispus  Attucks.  Out  on  their  Common  they  have 
there  erected  a  monument  commemorating  the  life  and  death 
of  this  slave  of  late  years;  but  only  a  few  descendants  of  the 
"Mayflower"  ever  heard  of,  or  piously  ignore,  these  basic  facts 
of  history.  So  when  I  could  not  help  hearing  a  conversation 
between  Colonel  Wilkinson  and  an  old  iat  friend  of  his  from 
Boston,  in  the  spring  of  1864,  my  blood  was  stirred,  yet  no 
word  escaped  me.  They  were  men  and  knew  things,  while 
I  was  only  a  private  and  a  soldier.  They  agreed  upon  the 
proposition  that  John  S.  Carlisle,  who  was  late  a  U.  S.  senator 
and  lived  in  the  next  block  to  our  Clarksburg  headquarters, 
had  lost  all  his  chances  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  for  which  he 
had  been  slated,  by  a  bitter  and  unwise  speech  in  the  Senate 
in  opposition  to  the  annexation  of  Berkeley  and  Jefferson 
counties  to  the  new  State  of  West  Virginia.  They  also  agreed 
that  Lincoln  must  and  would  be  re-nominated  for  President, 
but  in  his  talk  against  the  probable  nomination  of  Andrew 
Johnson  for  Lincoln's  running  mate,  this  well-fed  Bostonian 
said,  and  that  hurt  me :  "I  am  unalterably  opposed  to  Johnson's 
nomination,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  born  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  and  no  Southern  man  can  long  be  loyal  to 


250  RECOLLECTIONS 

either  the  Union  or  the  Republican  party.  If  Johnson  should 
be  nominated  and  Lincoln  should  happen  to  die,  then  our  Pres- 
ident would  soon  distrust  his  party  allies;  he  would  fawn  up- 
on and  soon  become  the  tool  of  the  aristocrats  of  the  South ; 
be  mere  putty  in  the  hands  of  the  Democrats.  He  will  not 
do;  for  our  Vice-President  we  must  get  a  Northern  man." 
The  world  knows  the  outcome  of  all  this;  but  at  the  time  his 
criticism  seemed  harsh,  severe,  and  unjust.  A  boy  does  not 
see. far  ahead  of  his  nose.  To  me  it  is  clear  now  that  I  shall 
never  know  as  much  about  politics  as  I  thought  I  knew  then. 

My  last  visit  with  Colonel  Wilkinson  was  in  September, 
1888.  Then  I  wired  him  from  Newark,  Ohio:  "On  arrival 
of  first  through  train  from  here,  I  will  again  report  for  duty 
to  my  old  commander."  The  train  was  hours  late  and  1  did 
not  arrive  at  Wheeling  until  after  dark.  In  the  dim  light  I 
again  recognized  the  tall,  soldierly  form  as  the  Colonel  was 
pacing  back  and  forth  in  the  station  waiting  for  me.  He 
sent  a  message  to  his  business  associates  that  he  would  not  be 
down  town,  and  for  the  next  forty-eight  hours  and  at  his  home 
we  fought  the  war  all  over  again.  When  first  I  went  with  him 
in  1863,  the  Colonel  was  smoking  a  special  brand  of  Wheeling 
stogies ;  I  then  learned  to  like  them,  have  smoked  them  ever 
since,  another  one  of  that  same  kind  in  my  mouth  right  now. 
In  1888  I  was  en  route  to  my  old  home  county  and  was  there 
billed  to  make  a  speech  from  the  same  platform  with  the  Colo- 
nel's old  friend  and  mine,  Governor  Pierpoint ;  his  parting  ad- 
monition was:  "Now,  my  boy,  when  you  get  back  to  Marion 
County,  for  the  honor  of  the  old  regiment,  I  want  you  to  make 
the  effort  of  your  life,  and  if  your  speech  equals  Frank  Pier- 
point's,  I  will  die  happy." 

Whether  on  detached  duty  or  carrying  a  musket  in  the 
ranks,  in  camp  or  field  or  on  the  march,  it  now  seems  there 


SOLDIER  FRIENDS  251 

was  no  variation  or  change  in  the  rule  that  our  sutlers  never 
carried  in  stock  but  one  class  of  literature — "Beadle's  Dime 
Novel."  Being  an  omnivorous  reader,  I  must  have  mastered 
the  contents  of  cords  of  these  novels,  and  was  still  reading 
them  when  I  went  with  Wilkinson.  He  soon  switched  me, 
first  to  British  magazines,  which  we  found  in  abundance  at 
headquarters;  then  to  Prescott's  "Conquest  of  Mexico  and 
Peru,"  and  from  that  delightful,  noveMike  reading,  to  books 
from  his  own  magnificent  library  back  in  his  home.  The  re- 
sult of  his  attention,  kindness,  scholarship,  and  wise  direction 
was  that  from  the  lightest  of  all  reading  he  had  gotten  me  into 
the  habit  of  reading  and  studying  the  best  books  of  that  day 
before  I  left  him,  and  that  habit  has  clung  to  me  ever  since. 


252  RECOLLECTIONS 


VII. 


JOURNALISTS. 

If  mankind  were  allotted  some  thousand  years  on  this 
earth,  instead  of  being  cut  off  with  one  scant  century,  of  course 
the  end  would  come  before  we  even  suspected  a  lot  of  things 
we  ought  to  say  and  do  and  know.  But  really,  now,  if  my  own 
time  here  were  not  so  short,  it  would  afford  me  pleasure  to 
say  a  word  about  each  of  the  many  journalists  I  have  known. 

For  example,  there  is  Major  JOHN  L.  BITTINGER,  for 
many  long  years  the  editor  of  the  Herald  at  St.  Joseph,  Mis- 
souri. I  Ve  known  the  Major  and  stood  by  him  through  thick 
and  thin  for  forty-three  years,  because  he  has  always'been  as 
true  as  the  North  Star,  as  brainy  as  the  best,  as  able  and  ear- 
nest with  his  pen  and  voice  as  the  wisest — and  then,  I  like  the 
man.  He  knew  Lincoln  and  Douglas  personally  and  reported 
their  great  joint  debates  in  1858;  was  the  trusted  personal 
friend  of  Lincoln,  Frank  Blair,  Colonel  Van  Horn,  Governor 
Willard  P.  Hall,  B.  Gratz  Brown,  and  a  lot  of  other  strong 
Union  men  of  this  State  away  back  in  early  war-times,  and 
the  people  who  know  him  have  often  placed  him  in  high  official 
station.  In  1874  I  went  from  my  home  at  Gallatin  to  St. 
Joseph  and  there  had  a  long  conference  at  the  old  Pacific 
House  with  many  other  of  the  Major's  friends,  for  to  him 
the  hour  was  dark.  Upon  leaving,  the  Major  came  out  to  the 
old  horse-car  line  with  me  in  front  of  the  hotel,  and  in  my 
earnest  good-bye  effort  to  cheer  him  up,  I  threw  a  line  from 


JOURNALISTS  253 

Cowper  at  him  and  quoted,  "God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  wonders  to  perform."  And  to  this  sentiment,  but  without 
a  smile,  the  good  Major  responded,  "Yes,  and  I  am  just  laying 
for  him." 

But  one  of  his  crisp  sentences  thrilled  me  back  in  1905, 
and  it  came  about  this  way :  The  Major  was  then  past  seventy, 
a  member  of  the  Missouri  Legislature  from  his  district,  and  in 
our  deadlock  which  resulted  in  sending  Major  William  Warner 
to  the  U.  S.  Senate  was  the  leader  of  the  bolters,  who  sup- 
ported for  that  office  Colonel  Kerens,  of  St.  Louis.  The  joint 
sessions  were  presided  over  by  a  Lieutenant-Governor  who 
warmly  supported  the  Republican  caucus  nominee,  and,  hav- 
ing a  rod  in  pickle  for  the  Major,  had  twitted  the  veteran 
on  his  age.  On  the  roll-call  vote  of  the  next  day,  the  Major's 
name  came  early,  and  with  all  the  strength  of  a  vigorous  young 
man  he  then  answered  to  his  name  in  this  way:  "If  not  now 
deemed  too  old  by  an  insolent  presiding  officer,  Bittinger,  of 
St.  Joseph,  now  casts  his  vote  for  Richard  C.  Kerens,  of  St. 
Louis." 

Then  there  was  ARCHIBALD  W.  CAMPBELL,  who  was  the 
editor  and  owner  of  the  Wheeling  (W.  Va.  Intelligencer,  who 
with  either  pen  or  tongue  was  always  earnest,  loyal,  faithful, 
logical,  and  forceful.  No  man  in  the  State  did  more  in  any 
way  to  aid  the  loyal  than  did  he.  Later  in  life  we  often  met 
at  National  Conventions,  as  well  as  at  Wheeling;  but  our  last 
long  talk  was  at  the  old  St.  Charles  Hotel  at  New  Orleans  in 
1883. 

There  was  JOSEPH  B.  McCuLLOUGH,  who  died  only  a  few 
years  ago  as  the  editor  of  the  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 
Through  his  vigorous  pen,  the  world  knew  McCullough  and 
applauded  him.  He  deserved  it.  In  the  war  and  when  I 
knew  him  best,  he  was  the  war  correspondent  for  some  Cin- 


254  RECOLLECTIONS 

cinnati  newspaper  and  then  signed  all  his  articles  "Mack."  In 
both  civil  and  military  circles  no  one  was  then  regarded  with 
higher  favor,  for  all  knew  that  "Mack"  wrote  the  exact  truth. 

The  temptation,  too,  is  strong  to  say  a  few  things  about 
other  great  journalists  I  've  met ;  notably,  Charles  A.  Dana,  of 
•the  New  York  Sun;  Horace  Greeley,  of  the  Tribune;  Murat 
Halstead,  of  the  Cincinnati  Commercial;  Morrison  Munford. 
of  the  Times,  and  William  R.  Nelson,  of  the  Star,  both  of  Kan- 
sas City ;  Henry  Watterson,  of  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal, 
et  al.;  but  through  their  several  newspapers  the  world  knows 
all  about  each  of  them  anyway. 

Most  of  the  Journalists  I  have  known  have  long  since 
written  their  last  editorials,  some  have  retired,  and  the  remain- 
ing few  still  wear  the  newspaper  harness ;  but,  as  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  day  advances,  the  early-day  editor  is  fast  disap 
pearing.  Our  great  newspapers  originally  reflected  the  pol- 
itics, personality,  and  individuality  of  the  one  man  who  owned 
and  edited  the  paper;  but,  in  the  evolution  of  time,  nearly  all 
these  arc  now  owned  and  controlled  by  corporations,  the  edi- 
tor-in-chief often  writes  not  a  line,  directs  others  what  to  do 
and  how ;  editorial  writers  are  employed  who  can  and  do  rep- 
resent either  side  of  any  question,  and  the  paper  is  run  by 
and  for  the  stockholders,  but  who  does  the  heavy  editorial 
work  is  unknown  to  outsiders.  The  progress  of  the  times 
demanded  this  change — and  got  it. 

There  are,  however,  two  great  journalists,  veterans  of 
the  pen,  of  whom  I  shall  here  say  more;  and  these  are  Colo- 
nel Van  Horn,  of  Kansas  City,  and  Web  Wilder,  of  Hiawa- 
tha, Kansas.    They  stand  at  the  head  of  the  class,  and  have 
for  over  half  a  century  been  close  friends  and  neighbors  in  the 
newspaper  world.     My  long  personal  friendship  may  account 


JOURNALISTS  255 

in  part  for  this  partiality,  but  each  deserves  far  more  than  he 
has  ever  received. 

ROBERT  THOMPSON  VAN  HORN,  Journal,  Kansas  City,  Mo. 

Ever  since  this  town  site  was  first  platted  in  1839,  w'se 
and  far-sighted  citizens  of  the  then  frontier  trading  hamlet 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Kansas  River  have  worked  without 
ceasing  and  done  their  full  duty  in  efforts  to  advance  every 
material  interest  of  people  and  city.  To  each  of  these  pio- 
neers of  thought,  energy,  and  action  much  credit  is  due  and 
given. 

But  in  his  long  and  efficient  labor  for  the  public  weal, 
one  name  must  be  placed  high  above  all  others,  one  man  has 
done  more  than  they,  for  as  writer,  student,  thinker,  editor, 
official,  worker,  and  lover  of  Kansas  City,  Colonel  Van  Horn 
to-day  stands,  and  for  over  half  a  century  has  stood,  without 
either  rival  or  peer.  A  hasty  glance  through  eighty-five  years 
of  the  life  and  achievements  of  Colonel  Van  Horn  will  be  of 
interest  to  Kansas  City : 

Born  in  Indiana  County,  Pennsylvania,  on  May  19,  1824. 
A  printer-boy  in  the  office  of  the  Register  at  the  town  of 
Indiana,  Pennsylvania,  on  April  24,  1839.  A  journeyman 
printer  in  many  States,  by  turns  a  newspaper  editor,  teach- 
er, lawyer,  steamboatman,  from  1843  to  ^55-  Married  Miss 
Adela  Honeywood  Cooley  at  Pomeroy,  Ohio,  on  December 
2,  1848.  Owner,  editor,  and  responsible  head  of  the  now 
Kansas  City  Journal  from  1855  to  1897,  and  was  first  induced 
to  locate  here  because  of  the  facts:  that  populous  American 
cities  are  either  on  thei  water  front  or  at  the  bend  of  some! 
navigable  river;  that  the  Missouri  River  runs  nearly  due  south 
for  hundreds  of  miles  and  at  Kansas  City  bends  sharply  to- 


256  RECOLLECTIONS 

ward  the  east,  with  the  only  natural  solid  rock  cliff  at  the 
turn  found  along  the  river  at  any  town ;  that  loaded  wagons 
can  go  nearly  due  west  for  a  thousand  miles  without  crossing 
a  stream  of  great  size;  and  that  the  town  then  had  a  glorious 
future.  When  he  reached  here,  the  census  just  taken  then 
showed  a  total  population  of  but  457  persons. 

Wrote  the  constitution  and  became  a  charter  member  of 
the  Kansas  City  Association  for  Public  Improvement  in  1856. 
This  later  beceme  our  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  then 
merged  into  our  Board  of  Trade. 

Attended  a  railroad  meeting  at  Linneus,  Missouri,  as  a 
representative  of  this  city  in  1857,  an<^  tne  movement  then 
inaugurated  resulted  in  the  building  of  the  Cameron  branch, 
which  is  now  a  ~art  of  the  main  line  of  the  Burlington  Rail- 
way system. 

Postmaster  from  1857  to  1861. 

Commenced  in  1858  and  thereafter  continued  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Daily^  Journal.  Attettdefd  another  railroad- 
meeting  in  that  year,  and  there  drew  the  ten  resolutions, 
unanimously  adopted,  calling  for  the  immediate  construction 
of  many  railroads  radiating  from  Kansas  City,  and  thereafter 
presented  these  resolutions  in  person  to  the  U.  S.  Congress 
at  Washington.  The  wide  publication  of  this  memorial  first 
drew  national  attention  to  the  39th  parallel  railroad  route, 
and  the  facts  were  forcibly  presented  to  Congress  by  Senator 
John  B.  Henderson,  *of  Missouri,  about  1862,  and  finally  re- 
sulted in  the  construction  and  operation  of  that  which  is  now 
our  main  line  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railway. 

Spent  large  parts  of  1858-9  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  and 
at  Jefferson  City,  Missouri,  in  looking  after  legislation  favor- 
able to  the  city.  As  a  member  of  Congress  he  had  to  be  at 


JOURNALISTS  257 

the  national  capital  and  on  duty;  but  for  his  paper  and  for 
the  city  he  in  fact  spent  most  of  his  winters  there  for  over 
forty  years. 

In  the  Journal,  and  elsewhere,  he  supported  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  as  the  Union  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency, and  opposed  the  movement  for  secession  in  1860. 

Mayor  of  Kansas  City,  elected  over  Dr.  G.  M.  B.  Maughs, 
the  Secession  candidate,  early  in  1861.  By  the  Act  of  May 
1 5th  of  that  year,  the  opposition  sought  to  change  the  law  by 
here  creating  a  Board  of  Police  Commissioners,  to  be  appoint- 
ed by  the  Governor  and  authorized  by  law  to  employ  and 
discharge  the  police  force,  and  to  take  that  power  from  the 
Mayor.  Van  Horn's  election  saved  Kansas  City  to  the  Union. 

Recruited  "Van  Horn's  Battalion,"  the  first  Union  troops 
here  organized,  in  June,  1861 ;  and  was  in  command  of  the 
post  at  Kansas  City.  As  post  commander,  he  then  issued  an 
order  which  practically  abrogated  the  Act  of  May  I5th,  and 
the  next  day  issued  a  proclamation,  as  Mayor  of  this  city,  rec- 
ognizing and  enforcing  the  Federal  authority.  So  that  law 
became  a  nullity. 

Participated  in  the  battle  of  Lexington,  Missouri ;  was 
there  wounded  and  finally  surrendered  to  General  Price,  with 
other  forces  under  Colonel  Mulligan.  Van  Horn's  Battal- 
ion then  merged  into  the  25th  Regiment,  Missouri  Volunteer 
Infantry,  and  he  was  commissioned  lieutenant-colonel  of  that 
regiment. 

As  the  commander  of  that  regiment,  he  fought  in  the 
great  battle  at  Shiloh,  Tennessee,  in  1862,  and  after  their  com- 
manding officer  (Colonel  Peabody)  was  there  killed,  Colonel 
Van  Horn  commanded  the  brigade  during  the  remainder  of 
the  fight  and  thereafter.  Was  later  in  command  of  the  work- 
ing forces  that  built  the  abbatis  at  Corinth,  Mississippi,  un- 


258  RECOLLECTIONS 

der  Generals  Grant  and  Rosencrans,  and  after  the  battle  at 
Medon  Station,  was  sent  with  his  forces  to  reinforce  General 
John  A.  Logan-  at  Jackson.  Not  long  after  this,  Colonel 
Van  Horn's  regiment,  being  greatly  depleted  by  losses  in  battle, 
was  sent  back  to  Missouri,  and  was  thereafter  consolidated 
with  and  became  a  part  of  the  ist  Missouri  Engineers,  better 
known  as  "Bissell's  Engineers."  There  then  being  two  sets  of 
officers  in  that  regiment,  Colonel  Van  Horn  retired  from  act- 
ive duty  as  a  soldier. 

Elected  a  Missouri  State  senator,  without  his  consent, 
and  while  at  the  front  with  his  regiment  in  1862.  Milton  J. 
Payne  and  E.  Milton  McGee  were  then  sent  by  the  people 
to  the  lower  house  of  the  Legislature. 

There  are  yet  citizens  who  get  red  in  the  face  and  froth  at 
the  mouth  when  discussing  the  horrors  of  enforcing  the  terms 
of  "General  Order  No.  u,"  which  was  here  promulgated  on 
August  25,  1863,  and  through  General  Bingham,  the  people 
of  the  affected  district  later  defeated  for  Governor  of  Ohio 
the  Democratic  soldier  and  statesman  who  issued  it.  But 
looking  backward  to  that  time  and  this  place,  forty-six  years* 
after  the  occurrence,  to  me  it  seems  our  people  overlook  the 
fact  that  there  have  always  been  wide  differences  between  war 
and  peace,  a  soldier  and  a  typical  Sunday-school  teacher,  for 
this  country  was  then  in  a  state  of  actual  war,  and,  as  Gen- 
eral Sherman  once  truly  said,  "War  is  hell."  As  nearly  as 
I  can  get  them,  the  facts  are  that  this  order  then,  issued  from 
"Headquarters  District  of  the  Border,"  by  order  of  General 
Ewing,  requiring  disloyal  residents  of  certain  districts  within 
that  command  "to  remove  from  their  present  places  of  resi- 
dence within  fifteen  days  from  the  date  hereof."  Living  with- 
in this  district  and  personally  well  known  to  man}  oi  the 
people  effected  by  the  unnecessarily  severe  terms  of  this  order, 


JOURNALISTS  259 

the  people  of  the  country,  speaking  through  the  written  re- 
quest of  Rufus  Montgall  and  many  others  whose  hearts  were 
with  the  South,  successfully  implored  the  commanding  gen- 
eral of  the  Department  to  appoint  Colonel  Van  Horn  to  con- 
duct the  deportation.  They  knew  and  there  said  that  he  was 
honest  and  sympathetic,  generous  and  humane. 

Mayor  of  Kansas  City  again  in  1864,  and  later  elected 
a  member  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  taking  his 
seat  at  Washington  on  March  4,  1865 ;  but  until  the  la^t  date 
continued  in  office  as  State  Senator. 

As  our  State  senator,  he  had  adopted  the  bill  which 
brought  the  now  Missouri  Pacific  Railroad  to  Kansas  City; 
also  the  act  incorporating  the  'Missouri  Company,"  February 
15,  1864.  This  last  law  granted  unlimited  powers  and  finally 
resulted  in  the  construction,  among  many  other  enterprises, 
of  the  present  Belt  Line  Railroad  around  the  oily.  Colonel 
Van  Horn,  also  drew  and  passed  the  legislative  laws  which 
released  die  taxpayers  included  within  "Order  No.  n"  from 
their  State  taxes  for  1862  and  1863 ;  and  also  suspended  the 
enforcement  of  liens  under  judgments,  for  the  execution  of 
that  order  had  left  waste  parts  of  the  counties  of  Jackson, 
Cass,  Bates,  and  Vernon. 

Delegate  to  the  great  council  of  the  five  civilized  Indian 
tribes  held  at  Fort  Smith,  Arkansas,  in  1865,  and  by  treaty 
there  secured  through  the  Indian  lands  the  right  to  construct 
the  now  M..  K.  &  T.  Railroad. 

As  our  member,  Colonel  Van  Horn  drew  and  introduced 
into  Congress  in  January,  1868,  the  first  bill  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Territory  of  Oklahoma — a  Creek  Indian  word 
meaning  "Red  Man's  Land,"  name  and  meaning  suggested  by 
our  good  old  friend,  Elias  Boudinot,  an  educated  mixed  blood 
Cherokee  Indian. 


260  RECOIXKCTIONS 

Colonel  Van  Horn  ably  represented  this  district  in  the 
U.  S.  Congress  by  elections  in  1864,  1866,  1868,  1880,  and 
1894.  Under  President  Grant's  appointment,  he  here  served 
as  internal  revenue  collector  from  1875  to  1881 ;  was  a  Mis- 
souri delegate  at  large  to  every  Republican  national  convention 
from  1864  to  1884,  twice  our  National  Committee  man  and 
also  served  as  the  chairman  of  the  Missouri  State  Committee. 

All  the  foregoing  record  facts  may  be  seen  and  read  in 
print;  but,  with  his  usual  modesty,  Colonel  Van  Horn  still 
insists  that  he  was  in  advance  of  his  people  largely  because 
of  the  other  facts  that  he  was  known  as  the  Kansas  City 
Journal  editor,  was  loyal  to  the  Government,  and  was  at  va- 
rious times  in  public  office. 

But  there  is  now  no  doubt  that  by  his  election  as  Mayor 
in  1 86 1  and  as  the  volunteer  aid  on  the  staff  of  General  Cur- 
tis in  charge  of  the  defences  of  this  city  during  the  last  Price 
raid,  which  culminated  in  the  decisive  battle  at  Westport  in 
October,  1864,  Colonel  Van  Horn  twice  rendered  to  the  city 
such  public  service  as  actually  saved  the  city  from  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  Confederacy. 

The  further  results  of  his  active  public  life  were  the  early 
entrance  into  Kansas  City  of  these  present-day  railroads :  Bur- 
lington, Missouri  Pacific,  Wabash,  Union  Pacific,  Memphis, 
St.  Paul;  and  also  in  the  construction  of  the  present  gas- 
works, water-works,  and  stock-yards  plants. 

In  early  times  the  rivals  of  this  city  were  Randolph  and 
Quindaro,  the  latter  then  having  the  largest  and  best  hotel 
in  the  West.  Then  came  the  cities  of  Leavenworth,  Atchison,. 
and  St.  Joseph.  But  when  the  Civil  War  closed,  all  these 
towns  realized  the  fact  that  under  the  wise,  sagacious,  and 
far-sighted  inspiration  and  work  of  Van  Horn  and  his  fellow- 
townsmen,  Kansas  City,  in  securing  ample  legislation,  was 


JOURNALISTS  261 

more  than  ten  years  in  advance  of  any  and  all  of  its  rivals. 
Not  a  man  among  them  ever  profited  a  penny  by  all  this  work 
and  law,  for  they  never  either  thought  or  worked  in  dollars. 
To  them  Kansas  City  was  everything;  the  individual  citizen, 
the  dollar,  nothing. 

Charles  C.  Spalding,  the  author  and  publisher  of  "An- 
nals of  Kansas  City,"  was  here  a  reporter  on  the  Journal  in 
1857-8,  and  his  book,  in  the  main,  was  by  him  then  taken  and 
made  up  from  the  files  of  that  paper. 

While  a  member  of  Congress,  Colonel  Van  Horn  drew 
and  secured  the  passage  of  the  laws  under  which  the  Hanni- 
bal (now  Burlington)  railroad  bridge  was  constructed  across 
the  Missouri  River  in  1869,  an:l  later  on,  in  the  same  way, 
procured  the  necessary  national  legislation  for  a  like  bridge 
over  that  river,  now  for  many  years  known  as  the  Chicago, 
Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  bridge. 

In  the  retirement  of  his  country  home  near  this  city,  at 
the  age  of  eighty-five  years,  Colonel  Van  Horn  retains  all  the 
mental  strength  and  vigor  of  his  earlier  life;  with  keen  relish 
enjoys  the  love  and  companionship  of  his  good  wife  and  fam- 
ily, his  books,  magazines,  and  papers,  and  no  one  enjoys  life 
more  than  he.  He  came  to  Kansas  City  fifty-four  years  ago, 
and  with  pleasure  and  pride  has  witnessed  its  growth  from 
that  day  to  this. 

Many  years  ago  Colonel  Van  Horn  and  I  were  talking 
with  a  group  of  gentlemen  in  the  Senate  lobby  at  Washington, 
when  Senator  Vance  discovered  a  newly  made  millionaire, 
who  had  just  purchased  a  seat  in  the  Senate,  pacing  back  and 
forth  with  knitted  brows  and  hands  behind  him,  and  asked 
Senator  Vest  what  this  fellow  was  doing.  In  a  flash  Vest 
answered :  "The  damphool  thinks  he  's  thinking."  Ever  since 
I  've  known  him,  Colonel  Vran  Horn,  like  Vest,  has  had  scant 


262  RECOLLECTIONS 

patience  with  those  who  merely  think  they  think.  No  one 
better  knows  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  saw,  that  "you  can't  make 
a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear,"  nor  that  educated  asses  some- 
times break  out  of  collegiate  corrals ;  and  while  schools,  col- 
leges, universities,  and  books  are  good,  and  those  who  have 
not  their  advantages  must  always  regret  it,  yet  practical 
thought,  reflection,  and  common  sense  are  better.  So,  like 
most  others  who  can  and  do  think  and  reason  out  problems 
for  themselves  (and  this  class  is  not  overburdened  with  mem- 
bers), Colonel  Van  Horn  spends  but  little  time  or  thought  on 
the  mere  theoristic  bookworm.  Industry  may  bring  knowl- 
edge, but  not  wisdom.  As  an  evidence  of  his  theory  on  this 
question,  he  was  not  long  ago  talking  with  me  about  someone 
who  was  simply  bookish,  when  I  asked:  "But,  Colonel,  is  he 
worth  while;  does  this  fellow  really,  know  anything?"  "Kno\v 
anything?"  he  said,  "no;  why,  he  is  as  ignorant  as  a  college 
graduate."  He  uses  his  brain  and  knows  that  the  man  who 
cannot  reason  is  a  fool ;  who  will  not,  a  bigot ;  and  who  dare 
not,  a  slave. 

Lest  these  facts  may  be  overlooked,  I  want  to  note  inci- 
dentally here  that  about  the  year  1848  Colonel  Van  Horn 
became  a  charter  member  of  the  Masonic  Lodge  at  Pomeroy, 
Ohio,  and  also  a  Knight  Templar  of  Mount  Vernon  Com- 
mandery,  No.  i,  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  and  is  still  a  member 
there  in  good  standing  in  all  these  Masonic  bodies;  that  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  granted  him  a  license  to  practice  law 
in  that  year ;  and  that  he  loved  to  dance  better  than  to  eat  away 
back  there,  and  long  after  he  came  to  Kansas  City  he  was 
the  champion  waltzer  of  the  Kaw's  mouth. 

Since  his  retirement  from  the  activities  of  lite  on  die 
Journal,  Colonel  Van  Horn  and  his  wife  (see  Appendix)  have 
spent  much  time  in  traveling  to  many  Interesting  parts  of 


JOURNALISTS  263 

America,  and  when  they  were  down  in  Florida  last  winter  I 
received  a  letter  from  Web  Wilder  which  was  so  good  in 
so  many  ways  that  I  remailed  it  to  the  Colonel.  Here  is  his 
answer : 

"LAKE  HELENA,  FLA.,  February   15,   1909. 
"Dear  Judge  McDougal: 

"I  received  your  letter — your  good  letter — with  Web  Wild- 
er's  characteristic  letter  to  you. 

"I  suppose  it  was  this  'enclosure'  you  want  me  'to  read 
and  study.'  Wrhat  a  noble  soul  Web  is !  His  description 
of  a  'gripper'  is  as  original  as  it  is  Wilderesque.  I  have 
in  time  past  imbibed  a  prejudice  against  'calomel,'  but  if  it 
is  'a  calomel  mind'  that  our  mutual  friend  has,  I  will  have  to 
reconsider  my  prejudices  and  become  more  hospitable  toward 
it.  Give  him  my  recantation  when  you  write  him,  and  my 
proud  appreciation  of  his  personal  compliment  to  me,  empha- 
sized by  that  to  our  friend.  Senator  Johnson  Clark.  There 
is  and  never  was  but  one  Web  Wilder. 

"Mrs.  Van  asks  to  be  remembered  to  you  and  Mrs.  Mc- 
Dougal, and  to  say  Florida  is  a  good  place  to  read  about  bliz- 
zards of  seventy-five  miles  an  hour  sweeping  Kansas  City. 
May  the  gods  be  good  to  you  is  the  prayer  of, 

"Yours  always,  R.  T.  VAN  HORN." 

On  March  10,  1905,  at  a  "Van  Horn  night"  meeting 
held  by  the  Greenwood  Club  in  Kansas  City,  Colonel  Van 
Horn  and  his  family  were  present,  along  with  many  of  our 
older  citizens.  Congratulatory  speeches  were  made,  the  ad- 
dress of  Prof.  J.  M.  Greenwood  being  especially  elaborate  and 
interesting.  Short  talks  were  also  made  by  Robert  H.  Hunt, 
Milton  Moore,  J.  V.  C.  Karnes,  J.  S.  Botsford,  L.  H.  Waters, 
William  J.  Dalton,  and  myself.  In  his  response  to  all  this, 
Colonel  Van  Horn,  in  a  short,  crisp,  terse  talk,  used  more  good 
English  than  all  of  us  put  together.  This  additional  proof 
but  strengthened  my  belief  that  in  his  powerful  paper  on  the 
Colonel's  life  and  services — incidentally  the  history  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  West — Prof.  Greenwood  was  right  in  the 


264  RECOLLECTIONS 

conclusion  that  America  had  produced  but  four  transcendent- 
ly  great  newspaper  editors — viz.,  George  D.  Prentice,  Horace 
Greeley,  Samuel  Bowles,  and  Robert  T.  Van  Horn. 

With  this  record  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  understand  how 
and  why  I  was  then  right  in  there  saying: 

"Mr.  President  and  Friends: 

"I  have  long  been  proud  of  the  Kansas  City  spirit,  which 
says  and  does  things  at  the  right  time  and  in  the  right  way. 
I  am  prouder  of  that  spirit  now  than  ever  before,  for  it  has 
here  brought  together  so  many  representative  men  and  women 
of  this  city  to  pay  tribute  to  a  venerable  living  friend  whom 
we  all  respect,  honor,  and  love.  But  I  am  proudest  of  all  to- 
night that  I  enjoy  the  personal  friendship  of  our  distinguished 
guest  of  honor,  Colonel  R.  T.  Van  Horn. 

"I  have  known  him  ever  since  I  became  a  citizen  of 
Missouri,  nearly  forty  years  ago.  Our  first  bond  of  sympathy 
grew  out  of  the  fact  that  we  had  been  soldiers  of  the  Union 
in  the  Civil  War  and  were  members  of  the  same  political  party. 
The  passing  years  brought  us  closer  together  and  each  year  has 
served  to  increase  my  admiration  for  the  man — for  his  vast 
knowledge,  profound  wisdom,  wonderful  achievements,  kind- 
ness of  heart,  simplicity  of  manner,  his  humanity — until  to- 
night this  big,  brave,  brainy,  far-sighted,  many-sided  man  ap- 
peals to  me  as  a  very  giant  in  intellect  and  manly  manhood. 

"In  the  days  and  years  that  are  gone  I  have  had  many 
long  heart-to-heart  talks  with  Colonel  Van  Horn,  and  at  the 
close  of  each  have  known  that  I  not  only  knew  more,  but  that 
I  was  a  better  man  than  when  that  talk  commenced.  And  if 
I  had  that  faith,  hope,  and  belief  of  immortality  so  soothing  to 
many  of  my  betters,  one  of  the  anticipated  delights  of  the 
mystic  life  beyond  the  River  would  be  that  I  might  there, 
as  here,  again  meet,  greet,  and  commune  with  my  friend,  in 
and  through  all  the  days,  weeks,  months,  years,  centuries, 
and  cycles  yet  to  be. 

"I  believe  in,  and  have  practiced,  the  sentiment  expressed 
by  the  poet  in  the  lines : 

'O  friends,  I  pray  to-night, 
Keep  not  your  kisses  for  my  dead,  cold  brow. 
The  way  is  lonely;  let  me  feel  them  now. 


JOURNALISTS  2C5 

******** 

When  dreamless  rest  is  mine,  I  shall  not  need 
The  tenderness  for  which  I  long  to-night.' 

tAnd  when  a  friend  has  either  said  or  done  a  good  thing,  I 
have  not  waited  to  speak  of  it  over  his  or  her  grave,  but  have 
taken  that  friend  by  the  hand  and,  face  to  face,  expressed 
my  grateful  appreciation.  Hence  I  am  glad  to  be  present 
to-night,  to  pay  my  tribute  of  personal  respect  to  the  jour- 
nalist, soldier,  statesman,  sage,  philosopher,  and  friend,  who 
for  half  a  century  has  been  the  most  useful  citizen  of  Kansas 
City,  as  he  to-day  is  easily  our  foremost  citizen.  And  having 
him  here  at  a  disadvantage,  I  repeat  to  his  face  what  I  have 
so  often  said  behind  his  back :  That  the  time  will  come  when 
the  rising  generation  will  say  with  pleasure  and  pride,  'I  knew 
Colonel  R.  T.  Van  Horn,'  just  as  we  of  the  passing  genera- 
tion proudly  say,  'I  knew  Abraham  Lincoln.' 

"When  the  long,  busy,  useful,  and  beautifully  blameless 
life  of  our  beloved  friend  shall  have  closed — which  the  gods 
grant  may  be  many  years  hence — then  it  may  well  be  said  of 
him,  as  the  gifted  John  Boyle  O'Reilly  said  of  his  ideal  man: 

"  'And  how  did  he  live,  that  dead  man  there, 
In  the  country  churchyard  laid? 
Oh  !  he  ?     He  came  for  the  sweet  field  air. 
He  ruled  no  serfs  and  he  knew  no  pride. 
He  was  one  with  the  workers  side  by  side. 
For  the  youth  he  mourned  with  an  endless  pity, 
Who  were  cast  like  snow  on  the  streets  of  the  city. 
He  was  weak,  maybe ;  but  he  lost  no  friend  ; 
Who  loved  him  once,  loved  on  to  the  end. 
He  mourned  all  selfish  and  shrewd  endeavor; 
But  he  never  injured  a  weak  one — never. 
When  censure  was  passed,  he  was  kindly  dumb; 
He  was  never  so  wise  but  a  fault  would  come; 
He  was  never  so  old  that  he  failed  to  enjoy 
The  games  and  the  dreams  he  had  loved  when  a  boy. 
He  erred,  and  was  sorry ;  but  never  drew 
A  trusting  heart  from  the  pure  and  true. 
When  friends  look  back  from  the  years  to  be, 
God  grant  they  may  say  such  things  of  me.'  ' 


266  RECOLLECTIONS 

DANIEL  WEBSTER  WILDER,  Hiawatha,  Kansas,  was  born 
in  New  England  circa  four  score  years  back,  was  reared  and 
classically  educated  in  that  part  of  the  footstool,  but  in  early 
territorial  days  came  to  Kansas  and  has  made  that  his  home 
ever  since.  Within  this  more  than  half  a  century,  Wilder 
has  many  times  fallen  from  grace  and  filled  public  offices ;  but, 
as  a  rule,  has  wisely  clung  to  his  beloved  books,  edited  news- 
papers, writen  a  lot,  and  thought  more.  The  result  of  all  this 
may  be  found  in  the  history  of  that  unique  State  and  in  the 
untold  number  of  book,  magazine,  and  newspaper  articles 
which  he  has  written  and  printed.  His  best  known  book  is 
his  "Annals  of  Kansas,"  his  least  known  his  "Shakespeare." 
In  Topeka,  Lawrence,  Leaven  worth,  and  maybe  at  other  Kan- 
sas points,  he  has  owned  and  edited  newspapers;  while  grow- 
ing out  of  the  troublous  border  trials  of  the  long  past,  he 
was  indicted  as  the  editor  and  publisher  of  the  St.  Joseph 
(Missouri)  Free  Democrat  in  1860.  In  all  this  he  has  been 
as  wise  as  a  serpent,  as  harmless  as  a  dove,  as  devoted  to  free- 
dom as  a  most  ardent  patriot,  and  as  gentle  as  a  girl.  So  no 
wonder  that  he  is  a  welcome  addition  to  all  political,  literary, 
social,  and  family  circles ;  and  the  better  he  is  known  anywhere 
and  everywhere  the  more  he  is  beloved. 

Throughout  the  West  everyone  refers  with  kind  affec- 
tion to  "Web  Wilder,"  for  to  all  he  is  the  same  polished, 
scholarly,  thoughtful,  genial  gentleman,  and  only  a  few  know 
that  for  half  a  century  he  was  associate  editor  of  Bartlett's 
"Familiar  Quotations."  For  many  years  we  have  been  close 
personal  friends  and  my  love  for  and  admiration  of  the  man 
increases  with  increasing  years.  He  is  of  the  "Mayflower'* 
and  I  of  the  Cavalier  stock.  The  history  and  literature  of  the 
world  are  at  his  tongue's  end,  and  he  quaintly  and  quietly  re- 
minds me,  in  his  easy  way,  of  how  my  Virginia  ancestors  in 


JOURNALISTS  267 

Colonial  days,  sometimes  purchased  their  wives  from  the  slums 
of  London  for  so  many  pounds  of  tobacco;  or  how  they  then 
persecuted  and  drove  out  the  Quakers,  and  often  resorted  to 
the  ducking-stool  for  recalcitrant  women  in  the  waters  of  the 
historic  James  or  the  Chesapeake ;  and  somehow  I  enjoy  from 
him  this  gaff  and  chaff,  for  it  is  another  reminder  that  perfec- 
tion was  not  given  to  man.  He  knows  that  every  native  Vir- 
ginian, from  the  bluest-blooded  aristocrat  down  to  the  poorest 
and  meanest  white  or  black  trash,  either  inadvertently,  ma- 
liciously, or  otherwise,  is  prone  to  be  proud  of  his  Virginia 
blood  and  birth,  and  always  feels  a  little  sorry  for  anyone  who 
happened  to  be  born  in  some  other  State  or  country. 

In  an  effort  to  get  even  with  Wilder  on  this  ancestral 
proposition,  I  once  told  him  of  a  ''Forefathers  Day"  banquet 
I  attended  in  the  city  of  New  York,  presided  over  by  the  best 
toastmaster  to  whom  I  ever  listened,  the  great  V William  M. 
Evarts.  In  either  the  toasts  or  responses,  Evarts  or  some  of 
the  other  speakers  told  of  these  three  incidents  of  early  times: 
From  the  time  they  sailed  from  The  Hague,  the  Pilgrims  were 
working  on  a  code  of  new  laws  by  which  the  "Plimoth  Plan- 
tation" was  to  be  governed ;  but  coming  in  sight  of  our  Chores 
sooner  than  they  expected  and  before  their  laws  were  com- 
pleted, they  drew  up  and  solemnly  adopted  this  resolution: 
"Resolved,  That  upon  landing  on  the  shores  of  the  New 
World,  we  will  live  according -to  the  laws  of  God,  until  we 
have  time  to  frame  a  better."  In  there  propounding  some 
sentiment,  I  think  it  was  Evarts  who  said  of  their  Pilgrim 
fathers,  that  "when  they  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock,  they  first 
fell  upon  their  knees,  and  next  upon  the  aborigines."  Then 
too,  some  speaker  told  this  story  as  illustrating  the  Far  South 
view  of  the  achievements  of  the  New  Englanders:  Bishop 
Green,  of  Mississippi,  was  in  Boston  attending  some  official 


268  RECOLLECTIONS 

function  of  his  Church,  when  his  brethren  of  the  cloth  es- 
corted him  down  to  see  famed  Plymouth  Rock.  They  grew 
enthusiastic  and  eloquent  in  recounting  the  doings  of  the  Pil- 
grim fathers  and  the  great  good  which  had  come  to  the  civil- 
ized world  therefrom,  when  some  good  brother  was  brought 
back  to  earth  by  the  fact  that  in  and  through  all  this  talk 
Bishop  Green  had  never  once  opened  his  lips.  Commenting 
upon  this  silence,  the  home  talent  finally  induced  Bishop  Green 
to  say  that  "if  one  slight  change  had  been  there  made  when 
the  Pilgrims  landed  on  that  rock,  America  would  thereby  have 
been  spared  a  vast  amount  of  slander,  scandal,  and  bickering." 
He  was  at  once  anxiously  asked :  "What  change  was  that, 
Bishop?"  And  to  this  he  slowly  responded:  "If  instead  of 
the  Pilgrims  landing  on  this  rock,  Plymouth  Rock  had  then  but 
landed  on  the  Pilgrims."  To  each  and  all  of  these  Wilder 
only  laughed  and  said:  "Maybe  so;  maybe  so;  just  like  them." 
When  I  was  exhibiting  the  menu  of  this  banquet,  how- 
ever, Wilder  got  his  innings:  After  each  item  of  the  many 
good  things  to  eat  and  drink  on  the  bill  of  fare,  there  was 
printed  a  quotation  from  some  well-known  writer,  and  down 
near  its  close  and  at  the  heading  "Cheese"  came  this:  "And 
then  comes  cheese,  which  digests  every  thing  and  is,  in  turn, 
by  wine  digested. — Shakespeare."  Now,  I  had  always  taken 
it  for  granted  that  in  some  of  the  writings  of  the  "immortal 
Bard  of  Avon"  these  lines  appeared,  and  was  not  prepared 
for  Wilder's  speedy  correction  in  the  words:  "Shakespeare 
never  wrote  that,  nor  anything  approaching  it."  I  insisted 
that  this  great  master  knew  and  wrote,  in  some  form  or  other, 
the  world's  wisdom  and  knowledge ;  that  this  was  a  good  sen- 
tence and  true,  and  that  if  Shakespeare  didn't  say  it,  he  should 
have  done  so.  To  all  this  Wilder  agreed,  but  again  said: 
"Shakespeare  never  said  that;  go  to  that  Concordance  of  his 


JOURNALISTS  269 

works  in  my  library  here,  run  down  all  you  can  find  under 
the  head  of  'Cheese,'  and  you  will  find  out  I  am  right."  I  at 
once  followed  his  direction,-  with  the  result  that  to  this  good 
hour  I  don't  know  who  did  write  that  line,  but  it  did  not  come 
from  Shakespeare,  and,  as  usual,  Wilder  was  right. 

Newspaper  men  have  many  wise  saws,  and  among  them 
that  for  one  to  make. a  success  in  that  field  he  must  first  have 
"a  good  nose  for  news."  I  must  possess  this  attribute  in 
high  degree,  for  I  never  hear  of  nor  get  my  hands  on  a  good 
news  item  that  I  don't  want  to  trek  off  to  a  print  shop  at  once 
and  have  the  dope  put  in  cold  type.  My  respect  for  and  ap- 
preciation of  printers'  ink  and  its  many  virtues  in  preserving 
the  good  thoughts  of  the  world  are  well  known.  Back  in 
his  native  State  of  Kentucky,  I  have  been  told  that  Tom  Mar- 
shall would  never  consent  that  any  one  of  his  many  great  talks 
should  be  printed.  No  mere  spell-binder  can  ever  afford  to 
have  this  done,  for  somebody  may  read  and  recall  his  words. 
HQ  goes  about,  makes  many  speeches,  paws  the  air,  says  noth- 
ing worth  while ;  his  hearers  listen  to  his  voice,  watch  his  gest- 
ures, nudge  each  other,  and  say,  "What  a  great  speech !" 
and  straightway  that  same  loud  howler  goes  into  the  next 
township  or  county  and  electrifies  his  audiences  by  the  same 
old  talk.  No  wonder  he  is  always  against  the  print  shop. 
That  sort  of  thing  never  appealed  to  me,  while  the  printer- 
man  always  looked  good  and  big.  So  when  my  good  friend 
Wilder  wrote  me  a  colossal  thought  some  years  ago,  I  asked 
his  permission  to  hand  it  to  the  printer,  but,  with  his  usual 
modesty,  he  said,  "No," 

Again,  some  years  ago  I  mailed  to  him  a  printed  copy 
of  the  marvelously  interesting  paper  written  and  read  by  our 
valued  friend,  Thomas  Adams  Witten,  on  Munkacsy's  "Christ 
on  Calvary."  In  returning  his  grateful  thanks  for  and  high 


270  RECOLLECTIONS 

appreciation  of  this  paper,  which  he  says  "makes  old  things 
look  new  and  strange,"  in  a  sort  of  semi-religious  refrain, 
Wilder  adds  this: 

"You  and  I  never  talked  about  creeds,  I  believe.  My 
own  position  favors  the  higher  criticism  and  is  revolution- 
ary. But,  in  the  Presence,  I  still  get  down  on  my  knees 
and  veil  my  face.  So  did  our  good  master  Shakespeare,  in 
many  and  many  a  devout  and  inspired  line.  We  believe  in 
modern  criticism,  but  the  spirit  of  reverence  and  devotion  re- 
mains untouched.  Matthew  Arnold's  best  sentence  is  this: 
'I  believe  in  the  Power  Eternal,  not  ourselves,  that  makes 
for  righteousness.'  In  your  bones  you  are  John  Knox  and 
I  John  Calvin,  in  spite  of  the  infamies  in  their  creeds.  (By 
the  way,  the  fatal  political  blow  to  the  'divine  right'  of  kings 
and  princes  was  struck  by  these  teachers  of  the  brotherhood 
of  man.)  But  you  and  I  are  moved  by  a  warmer,  finer,  higher 
spirit  that  came  upon  men  after  the  birth,  life,  and  death  of 
the  God  of  Galilee. 

"By  the  way,  from  much  tumbling  of  lexicons,  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  no  great  man  was  ever  born  ex- 
cept circa — about  such  a  year  or  century:  That  word  "follows 
the  great  names  in  the  cyclopaedias  and  attests  their  heroic 
figure.  We  do  not  know  when  Christ  was  born.  How  his 
words  got  themselves  reported,  written,  no  scholar  has  told  me. 
Shakespeare  was  not  well  and  really  known  in  his  time.  Near 
ly  a  hundred  years  elapsed  before  he  found  even  a  feeble 
biographer.  Emerson  says  it  took  three  hundred  years  for 
mankind  to  know  Shakespeare.  Lincoln  lived  in  the  bright 
light  that  beats  upon  a  throne,  but  not  a  single  American 
knew  him  until  he  too  went  up  Mount  Calvary. 

"To  come  down  to  much  smaller  men,  a  good  diction- 
ary, and  then  the  best  English  one,  was  published  in  the  reign 
of  Queen  Anne  and  made  by  'N.  Bailey.'  I  have  an  old  copy, 
my  father's.  The  last  edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica 
does  not  know  when  Bailey  was  born  nor  what  name  'N'  stands 
for.  Cruel,  but  according  to  rule  and  a  law  that  cannot  be 
repealed." 

Now,  I  have  in  my  library  at  home  a  copy  of  Bailey's 
rare  Dictionary  that  was  given  to  me;  and  by  twenty-nine 


JOURNALISTS  271 

years  it  antedates  the  publication  of  Johnson's  Dictionary. 
Scholars  say  the  latter  was  the  first  Dictionary  printed,  but 
it  wasn't.  The  above  is  the  good  stuff  I  wanted  to  print,  but 
read  on  and  it  is  seen  how  and  why  Wilder  refused : 

"Yesterday  I  asked  a  favor  of  you.  To-day  you  ask 
one  of  me.  Is  it  gracious  to  deny  you? 

"Well,  many  thoughts  remain  unspoken;  they  are  told 
only  to  a  friend,  and  then  almost  unconsciously.  It  would 
cause  pain  to  have  them  made  public. 

'But  what  binds  us.  friend  to  friend, 
But  that  soul  with  soul  can  blend?' 

"I  'm  an  old  man  now  and  don't  deserve  it.  Such  a 
lingerer  will  soon  be  toppled  over,  and  find  no  fault.  The 
youthful  soldier  of  Lincoln  can  then  take  my  stuff  to  the  print- 
er, if  he  then  values  it." 

Up  to  date  I  did  not  carry  this  rich  storehouse  to  the 
printer ;  but  I  '11  chance  it  now. 

In  the  hearing  of  Wilder  and  other  good  fellows  of  our 
Shakespeare  Club,  in  1895,  I  had  read  my  paper  on  Hamlet's 
insanity.  After  going  over  my  matter  again  not  long  ago, 
Web  thus  writes  me: 

"Lately  I  have  reread  'Is  Hamlet  Insane?'  (How  much 
life  is  added  by  using  'is'  instead  of  'was'!)  with  solid,  com- 
forting satisfaction.  Whether  we  like  or  not  the  goal  reached, 
we  have  enjoyed  the  journey,  the  illuminated  progress.  I  do 
not  dislike  the  conclusion.  The  play  of  'Hamlet'  is  a  hundred 
interrogation  marks.  Each  question  absorbs  the  thinking 
works  of  the  finest  intellects.  No  two  agree  on  the  answer. 
All  are  fascinated  with  the  study.  Each  century,  every  scholar 
enlarges,  adorns  the  subject  of  the  investigation.  An  age 
that  does  not  hereafter  enlarge  and  deepen  the  meaning  of 
'Hamlet'  will  be  a  dark  age  returned. 

"The  only  Shakespeare  critic  quoted  by  you  is  a  good  one, 
Hudson,  an  American.  His  judgments  have  stood  the  test 
of  half  a  century.  During  the  year  I  have  read  two  Shake- 
speare books,  Dowden  and  Brandes.  Dowden  quotes  Hud- 


272  RECOLLECTIONS 

son  more  frequently  than  any  other  critic.  Brandes  approves 
of  Dowden.  The  American  clergyman,  of  the  Episcopal- 
ian faith,  blazed  the  way,  to  a  considerable  extent,  for  both 
of  them. 

"The  multifarious  learning  of  Brandes  is  amazing  As 
one  English  statesman  said  of  another:  'His  weakness  is 
omniscience.'  All  through  Dowden,  you  can  see  that  he  is 
a  good  fellow ;  a  frank,  square  man  whom  you  would  be  glad 
to  know.  Brandes  knows,  apparently,  all  languages  and 
literatures ;  when  a  play  was  written,  what  it  is  based  upon, 
and  its  likeness  or  unlikeness  to  some  English,  Spanish,  Greek, 
Latin  or  East  Indian  production.  And  he  follows  Shake- 
speare into  places  that  you  and  I  would  not  go,  and  that  Shake- 
speare never  did.  But  this  Hebrew,  born  in  Denmark,  has 
to  be  looked  over.  I  think  our  Emerson  and  -Lowell  and  the 
English  Coleridge,  Lamb,  and  Hazlitt  are  the  men  who  best 
see  the  greatness  and  goodness  of  the  most  marvelous  of  all 
authors.  To  read  them  makes  you  hopeful  helpful,  radiant. 

"I  like  your  legal  definitions,  Coke,  Blackstone,  and  the 
decisions.  It  gives  the  reader  something  solid  to  stand  on; 
not  the/  guess  of  a  literary  'smart  Aleck.'  If  you  could  have 
given  a  citation  from  Braxton  or  Plowden,  or  gotten  in  i 
simile  from  the  rule  in  Shelley's  case,  or  the  statute  of  frauds, 
I  should  have  felt  still  more  pleased  and  confident.  (I  have 
not  seen  one  of  those  names  in  print  in  forty  years  and  may 
have  misspelled  them  all — to  show  my  learning!) 

"Your  view  is  new ;  it  holds  and  refreshes  the  reader.  So 
much  criticism  of  books  is  mere  speculation  by  persons  -/ho 
know  not  the  world,  know  not  men,  could  not  make  a  log- 
ical speech,  and  would  be  driven  out  of  court  by  a  wise,  clear- 
headed judge. 

"Your  great  page  and  your  original  view  and  argument 
is  page  two,  although  the  whole  statement  has  the  same  con- 
sistency. I  wish  there  was  a  bookful  of  this  fresh,  enlight- 
ening criticism.  It  is  good  and  clean  work.  The  book  would 
have  a  constant  sale  to  those  of  good  minds,  delighting  in  let- 
ting the  sun  shine  in  dark  places. 

"I  shall  read  it  again  and  again  and  lend  it  to  appreci- 
ative people. 

"I  must  fold  and  seal  this  now.  Ah !  what  lines !  what 
a  master!  'Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile.'  What  a  noble 
age  they  lived  in !  How  triumphant  over  time  and  death !" 


JOURNALISTS  273 

Away  back  in  the  days  of  the  Nazarene,  and  on  down  to 
Calvin,  Knox,  Shakespeare,  Cromwell,  et  al,  the  principal  ob- 
jects of  our  ancestors  were  war,  religion,  and  robbery.  Of 
old  it  was  the  thing  to  hang  or  burn  one  for  differing  from 
the  views  of  the  powers  that  be,  and  especially  on  religious 
questions.  Of  course,  they  were  oftener  wrong  than  right. 
Calvin  was  a  lawyer,  more  than  a  priest,  and  four  hundred 
years  ago,  almost  alone,  he  established  religious  liberty,  and 
for  the  priest  substituted  conscience.  So  he  may  be  forgiven 
now  for  burning  Servetus,  for  he  only  executed  the  order  of 
the  times.  No  doubt  this  was  the  thought  in  Wilder's  mind 
in  writing  me  about  these  matters. 

Because  both  Wilder  and  Van  Horn  had  been  hard-work- 
ing, close-thinking  newspaper  men  on  the  firing-line  of  our 
Western  frontier  for  so  many  years,  when  I  received  a  letter 
from  the  former,  early  in  this  year,  I  remailed  it  to  the  Colo- 
nel, who  was  then  down  in  Florida.  Without  the  knowledge 
or  consent  of  either,  I  take  the  liberty  of  reproducing  in  these 
Recollections  the  letters  of  both.  Wilder  then  wrote: 

"HIAWATHA,   KAS.,  January  27,   1909. 
"My  dear  Judge: 

"Your  pleasant  letter  of  more  than  a  month  ago  was  duly 
received  and  gladly  read,  as  they  always  are;  but  I  am  still 
tied  down  to  drudgery  and  have  been  again  visited  by  the  grip. 

"A  gripper  is  a  person  who  has  a  poor  body,  a  czflbmel 
mind,  and  no  head  at  all.  You  are  greatly  blessed  by  Jiving 
with  delightful  friends,  friends  who  have  known  each'.;other 
for  years,  whose  minds  are  superior  and  who  are  genial,  jo- 
vial, and  full  of  sympathy  for  each  other.  It  is  a  joy  that  has 
no  equal  as  we  travel  through  this  alleged  vale  of  tears.  On 
a  range  or  in  a  small  settlement  these  rare  blessings  cannot 
be  reached.  Where  is  John  Binns,  the  sailor  who  sat  in  a  dun- 
geon on  a  ship,  could  see  nothing  but  deadest  darkness,  and 
yet  talked  by  lightning  with  other  ships,  stayed  in  his  cellar, 


274  RECOLLECTIONS 

flashed  his  fire  out  of  nothing  through  black  darkness,  and 
saved  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  men,  women,  and  children? 

"My  dear  Judge,  you  have  had  a  fearful  struggle  to  go 
through,  but  now  you  are  again  meeting  Robert  T.  Van  Horn 
and  Senator  Johnson  Clark,  and  there  is  no  better  company 
than  that.  My  grip  attacks  are  nothing  when  compared  with 
the  attack  you  had.  Mine  disabled  me  in  mind  and  body. 
But  I  do  not  grumble.  It  is  one  of  the  ways  of  killing  time 
and  a  man.  Please  give  my  love  to  the  veterans. 

"We  do  not  meet  often  here,  but  the  ages  of  union  are 
eternal.  Love  to  you  all.  D.  W.  WILDER." 


POETS  275 


VIII. 


POETS. 

Nothing  is  recalled  that  would  at  this  moment  afford  me 
more  genuine  pleasure  than  to  say  some  words  of  my  own 
concerning  each  of  my  poet  friends.  To  the  world  they  ap- 
pear reckless,  careless,  inconsequent,  Bohemian;  yet  in  fact 
all  are  strong,  manly. 

CHARGES  GRAHAM  HALPINE.  This  Irish  gentleman  and 
scholar  came  to  America  before  our  Civil  War  and  for  a  time 
was  a  forceful  writer  on  the  New  York  Tribune  under  Greeley. 
Then,  during  the  spring  of  1864,  he  was  for  a  time  my  assist- 
ant adjutant-general,  when  General  David  Hunter  was  in 
command  of  the  Department  of  West  Virginia,  and  there  I 
knew  him.  Soon  after  closing  his  exceptionally  useful  ca- 
reer as  a  soldi?r  of  his  adopted  country,  General  Halpine  was 
made  City  Register  of  New  York,  and  died  in  that  city,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-nine,  in  the  year  1868. 

The  following  year,  his  old  friend,  Robert  B.  Roosevelt, 
printed  in  a  book  which  he  edited,  many  of  the  poems  of  my 
old  friend,  and  a  copy  of  this  volume  I  have  ever  since  had  in 
my  home  library.  On  its  front  fly-leaf  I  long  ago  noted  the 
above  facts  and  then  wrote:  "He  was  brilliant,  witty,  genial, 
and  social  in  camp,  wise  and  sagacious  in  council,  brave  in 
battle,  yet  kind-hearted  and  gentle  as  a  woman,  and,  as  he 
richly  deserved  to  be,  was  the  most  popular  officer  in  our 
Army."  Most  of  his  writings  in  verse  appear  over  his  nom 


276  RECOLLECTIONS 

dc  plume  of  "Private  Miles  O'Reilly";  and  an  hour  with  that 
book  is  always  refreshing.  Halpine's  "Janette's  Hair"  is  to 
me  his  most  beautiful  poem,  "We  've  Drunk  from  the  Same 
Canteen"  his  most  popular,  while  his  "Farewell  to  Club  Com- 
panions" is  the  most  characteristic 

JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILEY  is  another  rare  bird  whom  I 
have  often  met;  but  the  one  instance  of  his  Bohemian  days 
that  always  brings  a  smile  was  a  story  I  heard  long  ago :  As 
a  blind  sign-painter,  Jim  once  passed  current  in  his  native 
State ;  was  then  led  about  towns  by  a  friend,  who  took  orders 
for  work  while  Jim  did  the  talking.  With  orders  all  taken, 
and  the  funds  therefor  in  his  pockets,  this  "blind  man"  then 
mounted  the  painter's  scaffold  and  in  short  order  had  mer- 
chants' signs  and  even  dwellings  decorated  to  the  Queen's 
taste. 

Years  back  I  traveled  eastward,  and  for  some  now  for- 
gotten reason  stopped  over  a  train  at  Indianapolis  with  a 
St.  Louis  friend.  Together  we  repaired  to  the  old  Bates 
House  bar  (for  ice-water,  of  course,  the  weather  being  hot), 
and  there  pointing  out  a  table  in  one  corner  of  the  room,  this 
friend  said:  "Do  you  know  Jim  Riley?  Well,  sir,  two  years 
ago  I  stopped  here  just  as  we  have  to-day  for  only  an  hour, 
and  happened  to  meet  Riley  right  over  there  at  that  table ;  and 
do  you  know,  sir,  I  didn't  get  away  from  him  for  three  days?" 

In  July,  1882,  my  wife  and  I  spent  a  week  at  Indianap- 
olis in  visiting  old  friends,  and  Riley  was  then  a  modest,  ob- 
scure, editorial  writer  on  some  up-State  paper,  without  fame 
or  fortune.  While  we  were  there,  the  Journal  of  that  city 
one  morning  printed  a  little  poem  called  "The  Ole  Swimmin' 
Hole"  over  the  name  of  Benj.  F.  Johnson,  but  written  by 
Riley.  To  me,  as  a  country-bred  chap,  these  verses  seemed 


POETS  277 

unusually  good,  and  I  clipped  and  still  have  them.  Then  the 
papers  throughout  that  State  fell  to  wondering  in  their  col- 
umns as  to  the  real  name  of  the  writer,  and  at  last  some  coun- 
try editor  down  in  the  woods  gravely  announced  himself  as 
the  John  the  Baptist  of  the  series  of  inquiries  in  the  printed 
statement  that  this  poem  was  in  fact  written  by  "Benjamin  F. 
Johnson,  of  Boone."  Riley  had  the  time  of  his  life  in  repro- 
ducing in  the  Journal  all  this  kindly  criticism,  but  the  alleged 
discovery  so  struck  his  funny  bone  that  he  adopted  the  name 
and  the  next  year  afterwards  printed  his  first  Hoosier  dialect 
poems  with  the  title:  "The  Ole  Swimmin'  Hole,  and  Leven 
More  Poems,"  by  "Benj.  F.  Johnson,  of  Boone." 

In  1888  Riley  and  Bill  Nye,  who  were  then  running  to- 
gether, lectured  in  this  city,  Riley  reading  his  own  poems  in 
the  main  and  Nye  doing  the  humorous.  While  I  recall  the 
incident  perfectly,  yet  I  never  knew  just  how  it  all  happened 
until  this  year.  We  had  here  for  years  an  apple-vender  who 
kept  somewhere  concealed  about  his  person  a  laugh  that  could 
be  heard  for  many  blocks,  and  when  he  laughed  everybody 
else  joined  in  because  they  couldn't  help  it.  His  name  was 
George  Oswold,  and  to  disconcert  Nye  and  have  some  fun 
with  him,  his  old  friend  and  mine,  Colonel  Harry  A.  Bender, 
employed  George  to  attend  the  lecture  and  laugh  at  Nye's 
every  sentence.  Nye  had  hardly  commenced  his  talk  when 
Oswold  laughed,  and  out  of  sheer  spmpathy  everybody  joined 
in.  Nye  was  knocked  off  his  feet  by  the  applause,  but  finally 
went  on,  when  George  again  broke  loose,  as  did  the  entire 
audience.  When  quiet  was  at  last  restored,  Nye  looked  down 
at  Oswold  and  said :  "Ah !  I  see  there  are  two  of  us  here." 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  is  often  referred  to  as  "the  Bobby 
Burns  of  America"  and  deserves  the  compliment,  for  he  has 


278  RECOLLECTIONS 

written  many  beautiful  and  touching  verses,  but  to  me  nothing 
more  so  than  his  "Clover." 

EUGENE  FIELD  in  his  time  might  have  posed  as  the  Amer- 
ican King  of  Bohemia,  for  he  was  always  loaded  and  never 
once  missed  fire.  The  days  and  the  nights  which  I  long  ago 
spent  with  him  here  in  Missouri  will  long  be  remembered. 
He  had  learning  and  wisdom,  soul  and  sentiment,  and  never 
lacked  for  either  a  friend  or  a  word  or  a  verse. 

ABRAM  J.  RYAN  was  called  "the  poet  priest  of  the  South," 
for  when  first  I  knew  him,  he  had  been  the  chaplain  of  a  Con- 
federate regiment,  was  intensely  Southern,  and  had  already 
commenced  to  write  verses,  and  everybody  loved  the  man 
whose  strong  face,  wondrous  eyes,  long  curling  hair,  and 
priestly  garb  attracted  every  beholder. 

In  the  summer  of  1865  we  met  at  his  lecture  at  the  old 
Mozart  Hall  in  Cincinnati.  The  press  then  said  he  was  the 
first  Southern  man  to  deliver  a  lecture  north  of  the  Mason 
and  Dixon  line  for  the  benefit  of  the  widows  and  orphans  of 
the  Union  soldiers  who  had  laid  clown  their  lives  in  the 
Southland,  but  that  was  Ryan. 

The  day  f  clipped  Ryan's  greatest  poem,  "I  Often  Won- 
der Why  'Tis  So,"  a  learned  physician  friend,  named  Dr. 
Robert  D.  King,  of  Hamilton,  Mo.,  was  called  in  at  my  request 
to  treat  a  near  neighbor  of  mine  at  Gallatin,  who  was  very 
ill.  This  Doctor  was  a  man  of  wide  reading,  strong  and 
capable  as  both  physician  and  surgeon,  and  he  and  I  spent 
all  that  night  in  talk,  arid  the  basis  of  it  all  was  Ryan's  then 
latest  poem.  I  was  first  attracted  to  Dr.  King  by  his  curious 
professional  country  advertisement  in  1^67,  for  he  then  had 
the  nerve  to  use  in  print  this  closing:  "Charges  high,  cures 
uncertain."  In  the-e  nnes  of  (us,  Ryan  takes  up  and  dis- 


POETS  279 

cusses  every  phase  of  human  life,  and  years  afterward  ex- 
plained to  me  that  they  were  written  after  he  and  other  party 
friends  had  worked  with  a  like  committee  of  Republicans 
to  pour  oil  on  the  troubled  political  waters  prevailing  at  one 
time  in  reconstruction  days  down  at  his  home  in  Mobile,  Ala- 
bama. After  days  and  nights  of  constant  work,  their  joint 
efforts  won  and  peace  was  restored.  Then  Ryan  sought  his 
couch,  fresh  from  the  bath,  but  neither  slumber  nor  sleep 
car.ie  until  he  got  up  and  wrote  these  lines  just  as  they  were 
printed.  Speaking  of  Mobile  reminds  me  that  I  have  often 
eaten,  just  across  the  street  from  the  old  Battle  House  there, 
the  most  delicious  broiled  oysters  and  the  most  piquant  sauce, 
served  in  a  hot  and  big  oyster  shell,  that  I  ever  tasted. 
Neither  a  cook  nor  a  gourmand,  I  still  love  good  things  to  eat, 
and,  like  Ryan,  have  often  wondered  "why"  such  oysters  and 
sauce  are  never  served  elsewhere;  but  they  are  not. 

Ryan  delivered  a  lecture  at  Gallatin  along  in  the  early 
'8os,  and  next  morning,  while  waiting  together  for  a  belated 
train,  we  two  had  our  last  long  talk,  for  he>  found  that  rest 
for  which  he  always  sighed  in  1886.  He  then  agreed  with 
me  that  his  "Song  of  the  Mystic"  pleased  more  people  than 
his  "Conquered  Banner";  but  when  I  said  it  had  always 
seemed  to  me  that  his  poem  "Their  Story  Runneth  Thus" 
was  the  unfinished  romance  of  his  own  life,  the  good  priest 
turned  his  great  eyes  full  into  mine  and  said:  "So  it  is,  sir; 
so  it  is;  but  after  I  am  gone  the  sequel  will  be  printed,  and 
you  may  then  know  all  about  it,  as  one  complete  story."  I 
I  have  often  wondered  why  that  promised  sequel  was  not 
printed,  but  up  to  this  dnte  it  has  not  appeared. 

ELLA  WHEELER  WILCOX  grows  wiser  and  writes  better 
and  looks  lovelier  as  the  years  go  by.  In  New  York  we  once 


280  RECOLLECTIONS 

talked  for  an  hour,  and,  while  a  great  and  good  conversation- 
alist, it  then  seemed  certain  that  the  world  would  yet  come 
to  read,  know,  and  appreciate  her  more. 

WALT  WHITMAN.  If  this  gentle  man  ever  gave  one 
thought  to  whence  he  came,  or  when,  where,  or  how  he  would 
go,  I  never  knew  it;  for  I  did  not  inquire,  nor  did  he  volun- 
teer the  information.  He  was  rather  a  serious,  dreamy  sort, 
and  through  his  written  pages  the  world  of  lettters  knew  him 
long  before  our  Civil  War.  Throughout  that  struggle  he 
thought  much,  wrote  some,  and  talked  little,  mainly  because 
he  loved  that  sort  of  a  game;  but  for  his  daily  bread  he  some- 
times nursed  sick  soldiers  in  our  hospitals  and  sometimes 
drove  a  hack  around  Washington,  and  it  was  there  we  first 
met.  The  last  I  heard  from  him,  he  was  over  in  New  Jersey, 
wrestling  with  a  mild  form  of  paralysis  and  simply  waiting. 
But  the  great  unknown  became  his  in  1892. 

From  1861  to  that  fatal  day  in  April,  1865,  few  men 
either  knew  better  or  more  highly  appreciated  the  work  of 
the  great  Lincoln ;  and  no  man  living  or  dead  loved  the  grave 
thoughtful  "Captain,  My  Captain"  more  tenderly  than  did 
this  "good  gray  poet." 

Whitman's  writings  are  not  widely  read  by  the  masses, 
because  his  thoughts  and  theories  are  beyond  them;  but  the 
time  will  come  when  his  "Leaves  of  Grass,"  his  "Two  Riv- 
ulets," "When  Lilacs  Last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloomed,"  and 
other  writings  will  be  read,  studied,  and  understood. 

JOAQUIN  MILLER.  His  real  name  is  Cincinnatus  Henri 
Miller,  and  Joaquin  was  chosen  as  his  pagan  name  years  later, 
maybe  because  it  is  shorter  and  sounds  better  in  the  land 
where  the  sun  goes  down.  Anyway,  he  was  born  in  Indiana 
in  1841,  taken  thence  by  his  parents  to  Oregon  when  a  small 


POETS  281 

boy,  went  down  into  Nicaragua  with  the  Walker  expedition 
in  1856,  returned,  and  in  his  Western  home  read  law  with 
George  H.  Williams,  the  last  survivor  of  Grant's  Cabinet  and 
a  most  distinguished  jurist,  and  afterwards  there  for  four 
years  administered  justice  with  one  copy  of  the  Oregon  stat- 
utes and  a  pair  of  six-shooters;  then  printed  his  first  book, 
called  "Songs  of  the  Sierras,"  in  1872,  and  from  that  volume 
has  spread  out  until  his  fame  now  circles  the  globe. 

I  am  noting  him  last  among  my  poet  friends,  for  the 
reason  that,  of  living  Americans,  he  is  to  me  the  greatest  and 
the  best  verse-maker  of  them  all.  Emerson  excepted,  our 
good  New  England  poets  to  me  suggest  ready-made  cloth- 
ing; but  among  our  people,  for  many  a  year  to  come,  one  name 
must  head  the  list — Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

Not  long  after  the  publication  of  his  first  book,  Joaquin 
Miller  located  at  the  nation's  capital,  and  on  Jefferson  (Me- 
ridian) Heights,  up  on  a  hill  near  that  city,  constructed  his  fa- 
mous, quaint,  old-timey  log  cabin.  One  of  the  red-letter  even- 
ings of  my  life!  was  then  passed  in  the  old  National  Hotel 
at  Washington  with  Joaquin,  Elizabeth  Bryant  Johnston, 
General  John  B.  Gordon,  Olive  Logan,  and  Kate  Field,  long 
ago.  Joaquin's  cabin  was  then  located  on  the  exact  spot 
where  President  Jefferson  had  once  established  the  American 
meridian  and  erected  a  hewn  stone  post,  with  a  melted  Span- 
ish milled  dollar  run  into  a  round  hole  in  its  top,  to  mark  that 
point.  When  he  bought  the  ground,  Joaquin  knew  all  about 
the  long  past  history  of  the  transaction,  but  could  net  find 
the  post.  So  he  traced  it  from  one  point  to  another  down 
on  the  Potomac  and  back  to  the  city,  and  after  a  world  of 
trouble,  found  this  ancient  land-mark  doing  ignoble  duty  as 
a  hitching-post  at  a  hospital!  He  then  restored  the  post  at 


282  RECOLLECTIONS 

its  initial  location,  but  neither  his  visitors  at  the  cabin  nor 
his  surroundings  at  the  capital  suited  the  tastes  or  habits  of 
the  poet  soul,  and  Joaquin  removed  to  and  built  another 
cabin  on  his  lands  near  Oakland  in  California.  While  in 
San  Francisco  in  later  years,  I  wanted  to  accept  his  standing 
invitation  to  visit  him  for  a  few  days  at  this  home  and  regret 
now  that  I  was  always  (or  thought  myself)  too  busy  to  do  so; 
but  that  was  mere  personal  flattery ;  a  hundred  years  hence,  a 
week's  time  won't  matter.  In  directing  me  how  and  where  to 
find  his  present  mountain  home,  Joaquin  always  said  he  lived 
on  "the  Heights,  two  miles  up  and  three  miles  back"  from  the 
town  of  Oakland.  In  one  of  his  "Little  Journeys"  that  Heine 
of  America  whom  all  know  as  Elbert  Hubbard,  the  owner, 
editor,  and  publisher  of  The  Philistine,  wrote  up  his  visit  to 
the  haunts  and  home  of  Joaquin  Miller,  and  if  he  never 
writes  another  line,  that  masterful  description  of  man  and 
place  should  make  Hubbard  immortal. 

The  last  good  long  visit  we  hnd  together  was  in  March, 
1889,  at  the  old  Willard  Hotel  in  Washington.  James  Whit- 
comb  Riley  was  with  us  for  a  few  days,  and  we  three  sat  at 
the  same  table.  At  breakfast  and  again  at  lunch  one  day  I 
missed  both ;  but  at  dinner  they  came  in,  blithe,  happy,  even 
gay.  Joaquin  explained  their  absence  this  way :  That  morn- 
ing's paper  had  announced  the  th  n  serious  illness  of  thr'r 
friend  Rudyard  Kipling;  thinking  him  surely  dying,  t1  e  two 
had  spent  the  day  up  in  Joaquin's  room,  under  lock  and  key, 
reading  Kipling's  works  and  crying  like  children  over  his  cer- 
tain death ;  but  the  papers  on  that  evening  said  he  was  bet- 
ter and  would  recover,  and  it  was  this  good  news  that  made 
both  radiantly  happy.  Now,  I  had  read  all  of  Kipling's  writ- 
ings and,  aside  from  a  few  of  his  really  strong  things,  didn't 
have  an  exalted  opinion  of  his  stuff.  But  their  great  solici- 


POETS  283 

tude  and  sorrow  made  me  know  that  I  had  underestimated 
both  the  man  and  his  books,  and  on  their  account  I  later  re- 
read them  all  with  better  spirit  and  higher  appreciation. 

In  their  Bohemian  days  both  Miller  and  Riley  had  known 
and  loved  John  Hay,  who  was  then  Secretary  of  State;  they 
always  spoke  of  him  as  "Little  Breeches,"  and  urged  me  to  go 
with  them  and  call  upon  him.  But  I  was  busy  on  a  brief,  and 
the  two  went  alone,  just  like  two  boys.  Crestfallen,  glum, 
and  unhappy,  they  soon  returned,  and  I  said :  "Hello !  Have 
you  two  called  on 'Little  Breeches' so  soon?"  Slowly,  solemn- 
ly, and  bitterly  Joaquin  answered:  "Several  foreign  diplo- 
mats were,  in  waiting,  but  on  our  cards  we  two  were  prompt- 
ly admitted ;  no,  we  didn't  see  'Little  Breeches' ;  he  is  gone,  and 
in  his  place  sat  the  damned  cold,  stately  premier !"  Poor  John 
Hay !  In  younger  years  so  bright  and  good  that  his  closest 
friends  knew  him  as  a  part  of  the  salt  of  the  earth ;  yet  in 
growing,  as  he  did,  into  the  greatest  statesman  and  diplomat 
of  his  age,  he  became  so  cold  in  his  utter  absorption  in  public 
affairs  as  to  lead  those  friends  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had 
adopted  the  cynical  theory:  "The  more  I  know  men,  the 
better  I  like  dogs." 

One  night  in  my  rooms  at  the  hotel,  Joaquin  was  in  rem- 
iniscent mood  and  had  just  returned  from  his  old  cabin  home 
up  on  Meridian  Heights.  He  knew  my  familiarity  with  that 
part  of  the  city  in  the  old  days,  and  that  I  had  seen  how  the 
city  engineer  was  then  destroying  the  natural  beauty  of  the 
place  by  running  all  streets  through  these  Heights  on  a  plane. 
So  he  seriously  asked  what  I  thought  of  the  way  the  hills 
were  being  cut  down  for  streets..  "My  judgment  is  that  it  is 
a  piece  of  damned  vandalism,"  I  replied.  He  arose,  came 
across  the  room,  grasped  my  hand,  and  said :  "Thank  God, 
there  are  still  two  men  on  earth  who  retain  their  senses;  you 


284  RECOLLECTIONS 

are  one  of  them ;  modesty  prevents  me  from  naming  the 
other." 

Joaquin  then  knew  that  I  had  read  his  many  books  and 
quoted  stanzas  of  some  of  his  poerns  that  to  me  seemed  good 
and  strong  beyond  others.  So  on  this  great  night  he  mentioned 
as  a  fact  that  he  was  then  engaged  on  a  new  work,  and  said 
that  when  this  was  done  and  read,  I  would  know  he  had  never 
before  written  anything  that  was  worth  while  or  ought  to  live. 
I  innocently  asked :  "What  is  your  line,  Joaquin  ?"  He  fixed 
his  gaze  on  me,  and,  apropos  to  nothing  so  far  as  I  saw  at  the 
moment,  asked:  "Say,  Boy,  when  a  little  chap,  did  you  ever 
rob  a  bird's  nest?"  Without  shame  I  confessed  that  I  not 
only  had,  but  had  also  then  committed  every  other  misde- 
meanor thought  of  by  a  red-blooded  and  healthy  country  boy. 
"Well,  then,  you  must  know,"  he  said,  "that  after  you  had 
once  put  your  little  hand  in  on  her  eggs  in  the  nest,  the  old 
mother  bird  never  afterward  paid  any  attention  to  either  nest 
or  eggs.  So,  too,  it  is  with  my  work.  If  I  should  now  tell 
anyone  just  what  I  am  working  on,  I  would  have  to  turn  to 
something  else,  for  I  would  myself  at  once  lose  all  interest  in 
that  work." 

Joaquin  Miller  has  long  believed,  as  I  have,  that  Moses 
was  the  grandest  character  in  all  history,  sacred  or  profane, 
and  he  is  the*  only  man  on  earth  to  erect  a  monument  solely 
to  the  memory  of  that  wondrous  personage.  This  he  once  de- 
scribed to  me,  as  on  the  Heights  just  above  Oakland,  a  tall, 
stately  marble  shaft  with  but  the  single  word  "MosEs"  carved 
on  its  face.  He  knew  that  I  had  made  a  speech  on  "Moses 
and  Lincoln,"  and  this,  with  several  other  things  of  mine,  he 
wanted.  So  he  wrote  out  and  signed  the  list  of  all  these,  and 
at  its  closing  placed  the  date,  "March  9,  '99."  By  this  time 
it  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  neither  his  eyes  nor 


POETS  285 

mine  were  the  eyes  of  a  boy.  Without  glasses,  he  looked  long 
and  earnestly  at  that  date,  and  then  said:  "Say,  Boy,  there 
are  a  hell  of  a  lot  of  nines." 

Likq  most  big  men,  Joaquin  Miller  recognizes  the  wide 
difference  between  brains  and  bluster,  knows  that  lightning 
may  kill,  but  thunder  only  frightens ;  and  wisely  discriminates 
between  those  who  "set  and  think"  and  the  others  who  only 
"set."  He  knows,  too,  that  change,  advance,  progress,  are  in 
the  air  and  what  one  believes  to-day  may  be  cast  aside  on  the 
morrow ;  that  books  and  things  are  read  largely  by  those  who 
cannot  think  without  the  printed  page  before  their  eyes;  and 
so,  when  he  feels  the  need  of  a  real  good  book,  or  essay,  or 
sermon,  or  prayer,  he  writes  it  himself,  and  then  knows  it  is 
right  and  suits  him. 

Just  why  he  calls  me  "Boy"  I  never  knew,  for  he  is  only 
a  trifle  my  senior  in  years;  but  when  alone  he  never  spoke 
to  me  in  any  other  way.  I  Ve  long  been  fond  of  old  Joaquin 
inside  and  out,  from  his  onw  graying  locks  and  heavy  whisk- 
ers down  to  his  Western  boot-heels,  and  regret  that  we  do  not 
meet  oftener. 


286  RECOLLECTIONS 


IX. 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE. 

HARRY  A.  BENDER,  Kansas  City,  Missouri.  For  many 
.years  this  rare,  yet  strangely  genial,  sagacious,  and  wise  bus- 
iness man  of  the  wide  world  has  spent  much  of  his  time  at 
Excelsior  Springs,  Missouri,  and  there  we  met  and  together 
have  walked  and  talked.  A  confirmed  bachelor,  Bender 
dreads  publicity,  and  fears  a  woman  and  a  reporter;  but 
within  our  long  acquaintance,  without  either  reserve  or  boast, 

r 

he  has  given  me  some  of  the  facts  relating  to  his  eventful  life, 
and  at  the  risk  of  his  dire  displeasure  I  now  piece  these  to- 
gether in  a  connected  story : 

At  an  early  age,  Bender  was  left  an  orphan  and,  like  any 
other  piece  of  driftwood  on  life's  tempestuous  sea,  became  a 
newsboy  and  bootblack  on  the  streets  of  St.  Louis  during  the 
Civil  War.  There  he  happened  one  day  to  hear  a  great  speech 
by  George  B.  Burnett,  which  determined  his  course,  for  he 
thereupon  resolved  to  become  an  educated  man  and  a  public 
speaker,  and  did  both. 

As  an  independent  speculator  he  next  went  on  the  St. 
Louis  Board  of  Trade,  and  when,  at  the  close  of  a  spectacular 
plunge,  its  most-talked-of  member,  old  Mose  Fraley,  failed 
for  more  than  ten  millions  of  dollars,  Bender  took  down  three 
millions  on  that  deal,  cashed  in  his  earnings,  put  his  money 
in  solvent  banks,  closed  his  deals,  and  quit  the  game.  Largely 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  287 

to  get  beyond  the  temptations  of  the  stock  market,  Bender 
then  had  the  good  sense  to  abandon  the  field,  journey  across 
the  waters,  and  spend  the  next  five  years  of  his  life  in  travel 
and  study  in  foreign  lands.  Except  for  a  little  "flyer"  which 
he  took  in  copper  some  years  back,  he  has  never  speculated  one 
dollar's  worth  from  the  day  of  his  big  winning  to  this. 

While  abroad  there,  through  his  brokers  he  bought  up 
the  old  home  farm  upon  which  he  was  born  over  in  Illinois, 
and  through  the  scholars  and  bookmen  of  the  world  bouglit 
one  hundred  copies  each  of  the  best  historical  and  philosoph- 
ical books  of  every  country  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  These, 
with  the  ancient  and  current  literature  of  earth,  purchased  by 
men  who  knew,  to-day  go  to  make  up  his  library  on  that  farm. 
While  I  know  nothing  of  all  this,  save  the  catalogue,  yet  I  do 
not  doubt  that  Bender's  collection  forms  the  most  extensive 
and  best  selected  private  library  in  the  world.  He  construct- 
ed a  large,  fireproof  library  building  on  his  farm,  and  these 
books  are  all  there  now,  in  the  keeping  of  a  veteran  care- 
taker. 

Some  years  ago,  in  a  railroad  wreck  out  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  many  of  the  passengers  lost  their  lives  and  were  solemn- 
ly interred  by  the  generous  inhabitants  of  the  town.  A  young 
traveler  was  in  the  act  of  registering  his  name  at  the  village 
hotel  when  the  cortege  returning  from  the  cemetery  passed 
by,  and  he  inquired  into  the  matter.  The  obliging  clerk  gave 
him  all  the  particulars  of  the  wreck,  the  number  of  the  victims 
and  their  appearance,  and  adde,d  that  among  them  was  a  well- 
dressed  young  man  who  wore  on  the  lapel  of  his  coat  a  pin  of 
some  secret  order  exactly  like  the  one  worn  by  the  traveler. 
The  stranger  hastily  said :  "That  pin  contains  an  inscription 
giving  the  location  and  number  of  his  lodge;  that  man  must 
also  have  people  and  be  somebody  somewhere ;  his  body  must 


283  RECOLLECTIONS 

be  exhumed  and  brought  here  at  once,  and  by  wire  I  will  no- 
tify his  people  of  all  obtainable  facts."  All  this  was  done. 
When  the  supposed  victim  returned  to  consciousness,  twenty- 
one  days  later,  there  about  his  bed  in  that  hotel  stood  his  fra- 
ternal "brother,"  and  also  his  only  brother  and  sister — it  was 
Bender !  Pronounced  dead  and  actually  buried,  Bender  had 
suffered  a  severe  shock  which  suspended  animation,  but  was 
rescued  from  his  grave  by  that  faithful  stranger  and  restored 
to  family  and  friends.  He  was  many  months  in  recovering, 
but  the  shock  had  turned  the  brown  hair  and  moustache  to 
snowy  white.  Bender's  luck,  however,  followed  him;  years 
later  he/  had  a  severe  attack  of  smallpox,  every  hair  in  his 
head  came  out,  but  grew  in  again  as  brown  as  ever !  It 's  all 
frosted  now,  for  my  friend  is  no  longer  a  boy. 

Several  times  within  the  past  twenty  years -Bender  has 
been  near  death's  door,  and  his  attending  physicians  have  as 
often  assured  him  that  he  must  either  submit  to  a  surgical  op 
eration  or  cross  "the  great  divide."  But  his  faith  in  the  heal- 
ing properties  of  the  mineral  waters  over  at  Excelsior  Springs 
never  once  forsakes  him.  He  prefers  a  natural  death  any- 
way, so  he  always  waives  the  knife  and  advice  aside,  is  taken 
to  some  hotel  at  the  Springs,  and  so  far  has  always  been  re- 
stored to  perfect  health.  So  may  it  be  for  many  long  years. 
In  business,  Bender's  motto  has  always  been :  "I  '11  look 
after  my  side  of  the  deal ;  the  other  side  may  look  after  theirs." 
That 's  why  his  millions  are  to-day  intact ;  but  no  man  can  be 
more  generous  to  his  friends.  In  politics  and  religion  he  is  a 
free  lance,  and  nothing  gratifies  him  more  than  to  say  and  do 
exactly  as  he  pleases.  Sometimes  he  is  a  Mugwump  and 
again  a  Democrat.  The  next  day  after  our  last  general  elec 
tion,  when  Taft  was  sent  to  the  White  House  and  Herbert  S. 
Hadley  to  the  Governor's  mansion  down  at  Jefferson  City,  I 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  289 

received  from  Bender  a  letter  written  at  the  Saratoga  Hotel 
in  Excelsior  Springs,  making  this  pathetic  inquiry: 

"Say,  is  it  tru 
That  Taft  pulled,  thru, 
And  Hadley  too? 
Say,  is  it  that 
Which   makes  a  Democrat 
So  dam  blu?" 

HENRY  BOGGESS,  Marion  County,  West  Virginia,  was 
born  in  Fairfax  County,  Virginia,  in  1793,  and  died  at  his 
home  in  1891,  ninety-eight  years  old.  He  was  my  mother's 
father,  and  while  not  in  the  limelight  all  the  years  of  his  life, 
yet  he  had  been  a  fanner,  merchant,  county  judge,  teacher, 
preacher,  and  through  it  all  lived  on  a  farm  and  died  as  "a 
country  gentleman,"  as  had  all  of  his  ancestors  as  far  as 
traceable. 

The  first  of  the  name  whom  I  can  run  down  with  any  de- 
gree of  certainty  was  Robert  Boggess,  of  Fairfax,  but  whe  i 
or  where  he  was  born  I  never  knew,  nor  just  when  he  died. 
Indeed,  about  all  I  know  to  the  credit  of  this  early-day  Vir 
ginia  planter,  who  was  the  grandfather  of  my  grandfather,  is 
that,  as  still  shown  by  the  early  court  records,  he  was  indict 
ed  ("presented"  they  politely  called  it  then),  along  with  t'l? 
immortal  George  Washington  and  some  other  planters  of 
Fairfax  County  in  1760,  for  failing  to  return  to  the  assesso  • 
for  taxation  their  "wheeled  vehickles."  So  he  must  have- 
belonged  to  the  gentry  of  his  day,  and  no  doubt  drove  his  own 
pleasure  carnages,  drank  his  own  liquor,  ran  horse-races, 
fought  cocks,  chased  the  elusive  fox,  and  generally  conducted 
himself  as  other  gentlemen  of  his  country  and  time.  He  had  a 
son  named  Henry  Boggess  (born  May  /.  1736),  who  intermar- 
ried with  a  lady  of  that  county  of  the  name  of  Mary  Ann 
Lindsay.  One  of  this  Mary  Ann's  ancestors  is  named  by 


290  RECOLLECTIONS 

King  James,  in  his  second  charter  to  the  Virginia  Colony  in 
1609,  as  "Captain  Richard  Lindsey,"  and  soon  thereafter 
located  upon  the  James  River.  The  Lindsay  family  name 
is  spelled  fifty-seven  different  ways,  but  all  the  clan  that  came 
to  America  were  originally  from  the  lowlands  of  Scotland, 
near  the  ancient  city  of  Aberdeen. 

Enthusiastic  Lindsays  run  this  branch  of  our  family  back 
to  40  B.  C.,  but  to  me  the  claim  seems  a  mere  trace  until  we 
strike  the  blazed  trail  of  1032,  and  from  that  time  on  the.  fam- 
ily roadway  is  clear  and  plain.  This  Henry  and  Mary  Ann 
Lindsay  Boggess,  among  their  ten  children,  had  a  son  whom 
they  named  Lindsay,  and  this  grandfather  of  mine  was  the 
eldest  of  the  latter's  nine  children.  This  Lindsay  Bogges; 
lived  on  his  plantation  in  Fairfax  County  in  the  earlier  years 
of  his  married  life,  and  there  my  grandfather  was  born, 
within  the  sound  of  the  Great  Falls  of  the  Potomac,  above 
Washington. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  as  well  as  later,  Grandfather  oftep 
told  me  of  the  mill  at  the  Falls  and  the  canal  and  its  locks  con- 
structed around  these  Falls  in  1785  under  the  personal  direc- 
tion of  George  Washington. 

In  the  old  days  I  had  visited  on  the  Maryland  side  of  the 
Falls  by  way  of  the  old  canal,  but  lately  there  has  been  estab- 
lished a  trolley  line  on  the  Virginia  side  of  this  river.  Two 
years  ago,  I  took  this  trolley,  and  hard  by  the  Falls  had  no 
difficulty  in  locating  the  site  and  the  ruins  of  General  Wash- 
ington's old  mill,  his  canal,  the  old  Dickey  mansion,  and  the 
ruins  of  the  Boggess  ancestral  home.  But  curiously  strange 
to  me,  no  one  thereabouts  could  tell  me  about  George's  canal 
locks,  not  much  else  concerning  the  Colonial  history  of  the 
place.  From  repeated  statements  of  facts  known  only  to  the 
olden-timers,  however,  the  solid  stone  masonry  of  the  old 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  291 

locks  around  the  Falls  were  at  last  found  just  as  the  Father 
of  his  country  built  them  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  years 
before,  and  civil  engineers  now  say  that  no  architect,  engi- 
neer, or  builder  could  to-day  do  a  better  job. 

Near  the  mouth  of  Difficult  Creek  just  below  the  Falls, 
our  George  then  located  and  boomed  a  town  once  called  Ma- 
tildasville;  but  it  is  all  overgrown  with  trees  and  vines  now, 
and  nothing  remains  of  that  once  populous  place  save  its  ruins. 
This  creek  still  bears  its  Colonial  name,  and  the  woods  be- 
tween it  and  Drainsville,  "in  Virginia,  are  still  called  "Terra- 
pin Woods";  no  native  knows  why,  but  this  is  the  reason: 
An  erratic  old  British  sea  captain  once  spent  a  few  months 
in  visiting  Lord  Fairfax,  before  that  worthy  removed  from 
near  the  Falls  to  Greenway  Court  over  in  the  Shenandoah 
Valley,  and  then  called  that  country  "Terrapin  Woods"  be- 
cause he  there  found  more  land  terrapin  than  he  had  ever 
seen  before,  and  he  then  suggestively  named  this  creek  "Dif- 
ficult" because  he  attempted  to  cross  it  when  both  he  and 
the  creek  were  "full."  Sensible,  always. 

About  a  century  ago,  Lindsay  Boggess  removed  with  his 
son  Henry  and  other  members  of  the  family  from  the  Great 
Falls  to  what  is  now  Marion  County  in  West  Virginia.  There 
they  located  and  were  at  the  forefront  in  establishing  old 
Gilboa  Church,  and  there  in  the  Boggess  graveyard  all  that 
branch  of  the  family  sleep.  That  church  came  about  in  this 
way:  For  generations  the  Boggess  and  Lindsay  Clans  ha:l 
been  staunch  Church  of  England  people  or  Episcopalians; 
while  my  father's  people  were  strict  Presbyterians.  But 
when  Lindsay  Boggess  and  my  grandfather,  John  McDougal, 
both  settled  at  about  the  same  time  on  the  waters  of  Dunkanl 
Mill  Run,  they  there  found  neither  an  Episcopalian  nor  a 
Presbyterian;  their  widely  scattered  frontier  neighbors  were 


292  RECOLLECTIONS 

all  Methodists.  The  Clans  Boggess  and  McDougal  were  a 
Godly  people,  endowed  with  horse  sense  as  well  as  piety ; 
they  wisely  pocketed  their  inherited  tendencies  and  preju- 
dices as  to  churchly  affairs,  worked  in  harmony  with  thei  : 
neighbors,  and  with  them  then  formed  the  first  church  or- 
'ganization  in  that  part  of  the  country  as  Methodists. 

In  the  chain  of  title  to  their  first  home,  still  called  "Gray's 
Flats,"  near  that  church,  some  dissatisfied  owner  of  the  big 
plantation  once  conveyed  the  title  to  all  its  broad  acres  and 
the  sole  consideration  for  the  transfer  was  "one  pair  of  green 
leggins." 

The  first  wife  of  Grandfather  Henry  Boggess  was  Nancy 
Dragoo  (daughter  of  John  Dragoo),  and  I  am  one  of  the 
sons  of  their  only  daughter,  Elvira  Ann.  After  the  death 
of  his  first  wife,  Henry  Boggess  remarried  and  reared  a 
large  and  a  good  family. 

This  little  digression  may  be  pardoned  on  the  ground  of 
historic  and  family  interest :  The  first  wife  of  this  John  Dra- 
goo, together  with  her  infant  daughter  and  only  son  William, 
was  captured  by  the  Indians  near  the  mouth  of  Finches  Run 
in  now  Marion  County,  West  Virginia,  in  1786,  and  in  their 
flight  she  and  her  infant  were  tomahawked  and  killed  by 
these  Indians  only  a  few  miles  away,  and  just  above  where 
the  town  of  Mannington  now  stands,  while  the  son,  William 
Dragoo,  then  aged  seven,  was  carried  on  into  captivity,  later 
married  an  Indian  woman,  and  by  her  had  two  sons  and  two 
daughters. 

These  two  sons,  named  John  and  Isaac,  visited  their 
father's  people  in  Virginia  in  1821.  My  ancestors  there  be- 
came well  acquainted  with  these  two  half-breed  Indian  youn^ 
men  (sons  of  my  grandmother's  half-brother),  and  Grand- 
father Boggess  often  told  me  that  Isaac  Dragoo  was  the  no- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  293 

blest  natural  born  gentleman  and  the  most  interesting  pub- 
lic speaker  he  ever  knew.  John  Dragoo,  Jr.,  died  in  Virginb 
in  1823,  and  soon  thereafter,  as  a  .Methodist  missionary, 
Isaac  returned  to  and  died  among  the  people  of  his  Indian 
mother.  The  second  wife  of  John  Dragoo,  Sr.,  was  Ann 
Prickett,  whose  father,  Isaiah  Prickett,  with  his  two  brothers 
Josiah  and  Jacob,  came  from  Delaware,  and  settled  at  and 
built  Prickett's  Fort,  six  miles  below  Fairmont,  where  the 
town  of  Catawba  is  now  situate,  on  the  Monongahela  River, 
in  1772.  This  Isaiah  Prickett,  my  great-great-grandfather, 
was  killed  by  the  Indians,  in  a  raid  which  they  then  made  on 
this  fort,  in  1774. 

At  the  re-union  of  Maulsby's  Battery,  I  was  East  and 
made  a  speech  on  September  18,  1888,  on  the  very  site  of  this 
old  fort,  and  that  address  was  then  printed  in  full  in  the 
Wheeling  Intelligencer  and  in  the  Fairmont  West  Virginian. 

In  1866  I  spent  a  day  near  the  Great  Falls  of  the  Po- 
tomac with  my  grandfather's  old  neighbor — a  Mr.  Kankey, 
who  was  then  ninety-eight  years  old,  and  had  known  person 
ally  all  the  historic  men  oi  the  Revolution  in  Virginia.  As 
we  sat  there  in  the  sunshine  of  his  home  in  the  hills  that 
spring  day,  I  asked  this  venerable  man  many  questions  con- 
cerning these  patriots  of  old,  and  especially  of  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Madison,  and  with  his  chin  on  his  cane  the  ol  I 
man  answered  me  fully  and  freely.  For  Washington  as  a 
far-sighted  patriot  and  statesman,  Mr.  Kankey  had  the  most 
profound  respect;  but  of  him  as  a  neighbor  and  citizen,  from 
Kankey  I  then  came  in  possession  of  many  facts  not  down  in 
any  history.  The  truth  is  that  in  private  life  George  was 
not  exactly  a  saint  among  those  who  knew  him  well,  and  this 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  no  history  of  Washington  the  man 
ever  has  been  published,  and  never  will  be. 


294  RECOLLECTIONS 

Mr.  Kankey  had  no  high  opinion  of  Thomas  Jefferson 
as  a  statesman ;  but  gave  him  credit  for  being  "powerful  with 
the  pen"  when  anyone  else  gave  him  an  idea,  while  his  esti- 
mate of  Jefferson  the  lawyer  was  another  thing.  Indeed,  he 
then  unconsciously  paid  to  Jefferson  the  highest  compliment 
I  have  yet  heard  bestowed  upon  any  lawyer.  In  answer  to 
my  direct  question,  Mr.  Kankey  then  said:  "No,  I  can't  say 
I  know  a  groat  deal  about  Thomas  Jefferson  as  a  lawyer;  I 
have  heard  him  try  a  lot  of  cases;  I  have  been  on  juries  and 
heard  and  seen  him  in  trials,  but  he  never  exerted  himself, 
nor  made  a  big  set  speech ;  he  didn't  have  to,  for  he  was  al- 
ways on  the  right  side."  Mr.  Kankey  held  in  unbounded  es 
teem  the  character  and  achievements  of  Madison,  as  well  as 
many  other  public  characters  of  his  native  State,  and  was 
still  blessed  with  excellent  health  and  a  great  memory.  In 
then  listening  to  his  great  talk,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
men  and  times  of  the  long  past.  But  it  is  probable  that  Mr. 
Kankey  drew  his  political  prejudices  from  that  faction  of 
our  earlier  patriots  who  followed  the  national  policies  of 
Washington  and  Marshall,  rather  than  the  State  supremacy 
theories  of  Jefferson;  for  throughout  our  country,  and  es- 
pecially in  Virginia,  the  student  still  finds  strong  traces  of 
these  two  schools  of  American  politics. 

In  all  his  adult  life  this  grandfather  of  mine  was  a  de- 
vout Methodist,  a  reader  and  student  of  the  Word,  and  from 
my  earliest  recollection  always  read  from  the  Book,  for  to  him 
it  was  all  the  word  of  God,  and  held  family  prayers  twice 
every  day.  How  often  he  thus  read  through  his  old  family 
Bible,  or  the  new  one  in  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life,  I  do 
not  know;  but  when  he  was  seventy-two  years  old  he  pur- 
chased a  new  Bible,  which  is  now  here  in  my  office  desk,  and 
in  his  own  plain,  round  handwriting  in  this  particular  copy 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  295 

are  his  original  entries  which  show  that  between  1865  and 
1884  he  so  read  this  copy  through  from  beginning  to  ending 
fourteen  different  times,  his  latest  written  entry  being  this: 
"December  20,  1884.  Finished  reading  this  book  through  in 
my  family,  morning  and  evening,  fourteen  times,  from  Gene- 
sis to  Revelation." 

Henry  Boggess  was  a  staunch  Union  man  throughout 
the  Civil  War,  and  died  at  ninety-eight,  one -of  the  most  re- 
markable men  of  his  times.  His  home  paper  then  said  of 
him  that  he  was  one  of  the  ripe  scholars  of  his  day,  a  student 
and  thinker  of  most  tenacious  memory,  and  added:  "He 
knew  as  no  other  man  did  the  personal  history  of  every 
prominent  man  and  family  in  the  Virginias,  the  reasons  for 
and  the  leaders  of  every  political  change  in  the  history  of  our 
Government,  and  was  able  on  the  instant  to  recall  dates, 
names,  reasons,  facts,  and  kneiw  and  understood  all;  not  on- 
ly because  he  read  and  thought,  but  because  he  had  lived 
through  and  was  a  part  of  all  of  it.  Reared  near  Mount 
Vernon,  he  often  saw  the  great  Washington,  and  for  many 
years  past  he  was  the  only  person  living  that  personally  kne\v 
and  distinctly  remembered  to  have  seen  and  attended  the 
funeral  of  the  Father  of  his  country.  He  was  a  walking 
encyclopedia  of  our  country's  rise,  progress,  greatness,  glory, 
and  history;  never  wearied  in  imparting  his  knowledge,  and 
the  death  of  this  time-worn  patriot  and  patriarch  broke  the 
link  which  bound  the  present  to  the  past." 

ALBERT  BRISBANE,  Paris,  France.  Although  a  native  of 
New  York,  for  many  years  prior  to  his  death  in  1890  this 
eloquent,  learned,  traveled  citizen  of  the  world  at  large  often 
said  to  me  that  there  was  but  one  city  in  the  world  in  which 
a  cultured  white  man  ought  to  live,  and  that  was  Paris,  in 


296  RECOLLECTIONS 

France.  There,  and  there  only,  his  wandering  feet  found 
rest,  and  he  loved  his  home  in  Paris  as  no  other  spot  of  earth. 
His  only  son,  Arthur  Brisbane,  is  now  making  his  mark 
through  New  York  newspapers,  and  in  time  may  rival  his 
father  in  intellect,  as  he  is  now  easily  far  ahead  of  him  in 
practical  knowledge  of  the  world. 

When  first  I  met  him,  he  was  far  past  the  allotted  time 
of  man ;  but  was  strong  and  vigorous  in  body  and  mind.  He 
had  then  been  the  lawful  husband  of  three  wives  and  in  va- 
rious countries  had  accumulated  nearly  as  many  concubines 
as  the  Book  credits  to  the  account  of  the  sweet  singer  of 
Israel.  His  first  wife  was  Countess  Adele,  with  whom  he 
lived  for  a  time  in  Italy.  Their  affection  for  each  other  was 
so  great  as  to  be  oppressive  to  both,  and  largely  on  that  ac- 
count they  separated.  She  became  the  wife  of  an  Italian 
nobleman  later;  but  their  friendly  visits  were  kept  up  and 
they  each  wrote  to  the  other  until  her  death,  only  a  few  years 
before  his.  He  once  made  a  visit  to  her  at  her  chateau,  dur 
ing  which  her  Italian  husband  had  the  extreme  courtesy  t  > 
go  off  to  the  city.  As  they  were  sipping  their  wine  alone 
one  evening,  in  a  most  pathetic  way,  he  told  me  of  the  acci- 
dental meeting  of  their  hands  upon  the  table.  No  word  was 
spoken,  until  in  Italian  she  finally  asked:  "O  my  friend,  can 
any  woman  ever  forget  the  father  of  her  first-born?" 

Not  many  years  before  he  sold  out  his  interests  here,  a 
woman  who  claimed  she  was  once  his  wife  and  said  he  had 
often  introduced  her  to  others  in  that  way,  brought  suit  in 
the  Federal  court  for  alimony.  I  was  not  his  attorney,  while 
my  friend  was.  One  evening  Mr.  Brisbane  told  me  the 
whole  story,  and  seeing  clearly  that  this  woman  must  recover 
a  judgment  against  him,  I  advised  a  compromise,  which  he 
said  would  not  cost  him  over  two  or  three  thousand  dollars. 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  297 

His  conduct  had  not  been  exactly  circumspect  and  her  legal 
rights  were  plain.  So  he  said  he  would  settle  the  matter 
the  following  day;  but  did  not.  Then  I  again  urged  him 
to  settle  the  case  quickly,  and  finally  said :  "Mr.  Brisbane, 
I  know  the  law,  as  well  as  lawyers,  and  am  now  certain  that 
you  have  not  told  all  the  facts  to  Judge  Dobson,  for  I  know 
he  would  advise  you  just  as  I  have."  After  some  hesitation, 
he  admitted  that  my  diagnosis  was  correct ;  but  justified  h:m- 
self  and  paid  me  this  left-handed  compliment:  "No,  I  didn't 
tell  the  Judge  all  the  facts;  the  truth  is,  I  couldn't,  for  he  is 
too  nice  a  man!" 

Of  all  the  great  Americans  Mr.  Brisbane  met  and  knew 
in  his  long  life,  he  died  in  the  firm  conviction  that  far  and 
away  the  biggest  of  them  in  all  ways  was  John  C.  Calhoun, 
of  South  Carolina.  On  his  return  home  from  foreign  lands 
in  1842,  he  met  Calhoun,  who  was  then  in  the  U.  S.  Senate. 
For  a  quarter  of  a  century  Mr.  Brisbane  wrote  a  column 
in  the  New  York  Tribune,  then  edited  by  his  friend  Horace 
Greeley,  devoted  to  "Social  Reforms,"  and  naturally  he  and 
Calhoun  discussed  that  subject.  He  told  me  that  in  their 
six  night  discussions  their  conversation  once  turned  on  the 
then  all-important  question  of  negro  slavery,  and  that  in  an- 
swer to  an  interrogatory  of  his,  Calhoun  in  plain,  unmistak- 
able language  laid  down  this  proposition:  "As  an  abstract 
question,  I  never  have,  nor  do  I  now,  favor  negro  slavery; 
but  as  an  American  citizen,  and  from  the  position  I  occupy 
presumably  an  American  statesman,  I  believe  in  and  favor 
the  institution  of  slavery  in  our  country,  and  for  this  reason : 
The  only  danger  which  can  ever  threaten  this  or  any  other 
republic  is  that  danger  which  may  arise  between  capital  and 
labor.  Negro  slavery  now  exists  in  say  one  half  of  this 
(country— the  South.  In  the  South,  therefore,  our  capital 


298  RECOLLECTIONS 

owns  our  labor,  and  so  long  as  that  condition  exists,  there 
can  be  no  conflict  between  the  capital  and  labor  of  that  sec- 
tion of  our  country.  But  abolish  slavery  there,  and  the 
danger  which  I  fear  between  the  capital  oi  our  country  on 
the  one  side  and  our  labor  on  the  other,  will  first  manifest 
itself  in  riots,  strikes,  and  the  like  in  the  North,  and  this 
trouble  will  in  time  spread  throughout  the  South  and  our 
whole  country,  as  well.  When  that  evil  day  comes,  if  it  ever 
does,  then  farewell  to  a  republican  form  of  government  on 
American  soil,  for  this  country  will  then  suffer  the  curses  of 
anarchy."  This  impressive  recital  by  Mr.  Brisbane  of  the 
gloomy  yet  prophetic  fears  of  the  great  "nullifier"  came  to 
my  mental  vision  as  a  sort  of  revelation,  and  I  then  inquire  i 
what,  in  his  judgment,  would  be  the  ultimate  result.  The 
far-sighted  old  seer  earnestly  answered:  "Sir,  upon  that 
question  I  have  always  believed  that  Calhoun  was  both  hon- 
est and  right.  Look  at  the  situation:  Only  two  decades 
have  elapsed  since  freedom  came  to  all  American  slaves.  It 
was  a  great  institution,  but  a  greater  curse,  and  I  am  gad  the 
negrces  are  free.  But  the  fears  of  Calhoun  may  yet  be  re- 
alized. This  Government  will  outlive  me;  it  may  not  exist 
always." 

After  realizing  fully  that  much  of  the  world's  wisdom 
must  die  with  Mr.  Brisbane,  I  urged  him  often  to  either  write 
out  his  reminiscences  or  talk  his  life-thoughts  to  some  friend 
and  let  a  stenographer  take  it  in  shorthand.  But  he  was  toj 
much  given  to  analysis  to  write,  and  many  a  time  asked . 
"What 's  the  odds  what  I  have  either  seen  or  thought  ?  Who 
would  either  read  or  understand?"  He  was  as  modest  as 
he  was  great.  Finally,  however,  his  good  wife  prevailed 
upon  him  to  talk  of  his  life  arid  thoughts  and  theories  to 
her,  in  the  gardens  of  their  Paris  home,  and  these  she  had 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  299 

a  stenographer  take  down.  The  result  of  all  this  was  a 
book,  which  was  prepared  and  printed  by  her  after  his  death, 
entitled  "Albert  Brisbane:  A  Mental  Biography."  When 
Mrs.  Brisbane's  materials  were  all  in  manuscript,  she  brought 
it  to  this  country  and  to  me,  as  one  of  his  closest  living 
friends.  Together  we  went  over  all  the  matter  in  1893,  and 
while  it  was  all  interesting  and  good,  yet  it  did  not  satisfy 
me.  I  recall  especially  the  Calhoun  incident  of  1842,  which 
I  here  give,  and  Brisbane's  talk  on  that  subject  in  the  book 
is  not  at  all  as  hq  told  the  story  to  me  in  1885. 

When  the  volume  was  printed,  I  again  read  it,  and  on 
the  fly-leaves  of  my  copy  of  the  book  then  wrote  two  notes 
of  my  own  recollections  of  the  man,  which  are  here  re- 
produce;! : 

NOTE  i :  "On  January  i,  1885,  I  removed  my  law 
office  from  Gallatin,  Mo.,  to  this  city,  and  took  a  suite  of 
rooms,  used  for  offices  and  temporary  sleeping  apartments, 
in  Delaware  Block,  corner  of  Seventh  and  Delaware  Streets, 
then  owned  by  Albert  Brisbane.  Here  I  lived  until  the  re- 
moval of  my  family  to  the  new  home,  2433  Troost  Avenue, 
on  September  i,  1885. 

"My  friend  Judge  C.  L.  Dobson,  the  attorney  of  Mr. 
Brisbane,  had  an  office  near  mine  on  the  same  floor.  Attract- 
ed by  the  splendid,  thoughtful  face  and  preoccupied  manner 
of  a  venerable  gentleman  whom  I  often  met  in  the  building, 
in  answer  to  an  inquiry,  some  friend  informed  me  that  he 
was  my  landlord — a  man  of  great  learning,  extensive  travel, 
rich  in  mind  and  purse,  and — a  crank !  That  interested  me ; 
but,  as  he  paid  no  more  attention  to  his  tenants  than  if  they 
were  so  many  wooden  men,  there  seemed  no  probability 
of  an  acquaintance  until  one  day  both  happened  in  Judge 
Dobson's  office.  The  Judge  and  I  were  discussing  foods, 
and  after  he  had  given  at  some  length  his  views  as  to  what, 
whan,  and  how  one  should  eat,  I  gave  him  mv  daily  diet: 
breakfast,  coffee  and  hot  rolls,  or  hot  corn  cakes;  midday 
lunch,  a  bowl  of  soup,  or  a  piece  of  pie  and  a  glass  of  milk; 
and  at  six  p.  M.  a  good  meat  dinner ;  and  I  added  that  in  many 


300  RECOLLECTIONS 

years  had  not  been  ill  a  single  hour.  Hearing  this,  Mr. 
Brisbane  rose,  walked  rapidly  to  me,  and  warmly  grasped  my 
hand  as  he  exclaimed :  'Egad !  sir,  you  are  a  wise  man ;  I 
want  to  know  you,  sir.'  Together  we  went  into  my  office, 
where  he  questioned  me  closely  concerning  my  life,  habits 
of  eating,  sleeping,  thinking,  working,  etc.  I  had  simply  fal- 
len into  these  habits;  but  he,  by  years  of  study,  observation, 
and  reflection,  had  reasoned  them  all  out,  and  seemed  to 
me  to  be  the  absolute  master  of  the  theory  of  correct  living. 
"This  was  the  beginning  of  our  friendship.  In  him  1 
found  by  far  the  best  talker  I  had  met ;  in  me  he  found  a 
good  listener,  and  as  this  always  makes  good  friends,  w: 
found  the  association  so  pleasant  and  interesting  that  during 
these  eight  months  we  spent  almost  every  night  together  in 
my  quarters.  His  rooms  were  just  above  mine  on  the  next 
floor,  and  early  each,  evening  it  was  his  custom  to  step  into 
the  hall  and  call  to  his  valet :  'Eddie,  bring  down  a  bottle  of 
that  Bordeaux  and  some  brown  bread  and  butter/  These 
were  promptly  brought  and  placed  between  us  on  an  office 
table,  and  from  that  time  on  till  two  and  three  in  the  morn- 
ing', without  interruption,  we  two  were  there  alone,  sipping 
the  rare  wine,  nibbling  the  brown  bread ;  and  such  talks  as  he 
gave  never  before,  in  my  judgment,  came  from  the  lips  of 
man.  With  as  little  reserve  as  Rousseau  gave  to  the  world 
his  'Confessions'  did  Mr.  Brisbane  give  to  me  the  history  of 
his  strange  career,  and  the  latter  was  by  far  the  more  inter- 
esting. He  had  commenced  travel  abroad  at  eighteen;  spent 
about  two-thirds  of  his  eventful  life  in  foreign  lands,  and  left 
the  imprint  of  mind  and  foot  in  every  country  and  clime 
known  to  civilization ;  had  personally  communed  with  and 
been  the  student  or  associate  of  the  world's  greatest  and  best 
thinkers  and  had  walked  and  talked  with  the  world's  rare  and 
radiant  men  and  women  who  had  lived  during  the  past  six- 
ty years.  The  languages,  history,  literature,  poetry,  music, 
philosophy,  arts,  and  sciences  of  the  wide  world  were  his; 
and  better  than  all  the  men  and  women  to  whom  I  have 
listened  and  after  whom  I  have  read  did  he  know  how  to 
impart  and  make  plain  to  the  unlearned  and  untraveled  his 
encyclopediacal  knowledge.  To  me  this  rare  gift  is  one  of 
the  tests  of  greatness.  He  accepted  the  theory  of  neither 
God  nor  man  nor  woman  upon  any  given  proposition;  but, 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  301 

like  the  one  great  pioneer  of  thought  that  he  was,  fearlessly 
and  alone  plunged  into  what  at  first  sight  to  him  presented 
itself  as  a  trackless  intellectual  desert,  and  by  his  rapid, 
matchless,  original  reasoning  made  it  blossom  and  bloom  un- 
til the  mists  wexe  all  cleared  away,  and  he  knew  and  under- 
stood the  question  from  his  own  standpoint,  for  himself, 
upon  his  own  theory. 

"He  inherited  all  his  wealth,  never  made  a  dollar  in  his 
life,  was  wholly  lacking  in  what  the  world  calls  practical  sense, 
cared  but  little  for  the  present  or  future  of  the  individual, 
and,  thinking  and  dreaming  his  life  away  in  an  honest,  earn- 
est, noble  effort  to  better  the  conditions  of  aggregate  hu- 
manity, his  greatest  misfortune  was  that  he  was  born  two 
centuries  before  his  time. 

"Of  tragedy  and  drama  his  life  was  filled;  in  it  there 
was  not  the  faintest  trace  of  comedy,  while  for  his  use  the 
usual  side-splitting  joke  required  a  diagram.  He  was  all  earn- 
est, serious  intellect,  analysis,  and  logic.  But  the  dear  old 
dreamer  is  dead ;  and  with  his  life  there  went  out  the  clear- 
est, purest  intellectual  sun  that  ever  cast  its  warm  light  up- 
on the  mental  darkness  of  his  times.  Few  will  understand 
this  estimate,  because  few  knew  the  man. 

"After  carefully  reading  this  book,  I  confess  to  deep 
disappointment.  The  'character  study'  of  the  devoted  wife 
is  ciS  true  as  it  is  charming.  '  Every  thing  touched  upon  in 
the  book,  and  a  thousand  others,  he  discussed  with  me;  and 
while  the  book  will  live  and  be  enjoyed  by  every  thoughtful 
reader  because  of  the.  glimpse  it  gives  the  world  of  this  mar- 
velous man,  yet  those  who  knew  him  well,  as  I  did,  will  find 
upon  almost  every  page  evidence  of  the  restraint  that  tram- 
meled the  modest  soul — he  knew  he  was  talking  through  a 
stenographer  to  the  world,  and  that  embarrassed  him.  I  miss 
the  freedom  and  the  freshness,  the  fervency  and  the  clearness. 
not  less  than  the  charm  of  manner  and  the  indescribable  flow 
r;  the  direct,  simple,  easy,  and  eloquent  delivery,  that  charac- 
terized all  his  talks  over  the  wine  and  the  brown  bread  in  my 
office  during  those  rare  eight  months  in  1885.  Had  I  but  pos- 
sessed the  foresight  to  secure  and  secrete  a  stenographer  and 
have  him  take  down  all  that  was  said  during  those  never-to- 
be-forgotten  nights,  so  high  is  my  appreciation  of  the  man's 
wisdom  that  I  would  rather  have  those  talks,  in  manuscript 
even,  than  to  have  every  book  in  my  library.  A  little  money 


302  RECOLLECTIONS 

would  repiace  the  library ;  not  all  the  world's  wealth  could 
accurately  reproduce  his  talks ;  and  yet,  for  this  imperfect 
production,  I  am  profoundly  thankful."     (1893.) 

Brisbane  v.  Dean. 

NOTE  2:  "In  the  summer  of  1885  I  had  offices  in  the 
Brisbane  building,  at  the  corner  of  Seventh  and  Delaware 
streets,  and  there  brought  about  and  was  present  at  the  first 
and  only  meeting  of  Albert  Brisbane  and  Henry  Clay  Dean. 
Each  thought  for  himself,  but  their  lines  of  thought  were  radi- 
cally different. 

"From  my  boyhood  I  had  known  Mr.  Dean,  and  while 
he  was  regarded  by  many  as  a  revolutionary  crank,  I  sincere- 
ly admired  and  respected  the  man  for  his  moral  worth,  gen- 
tle nature  in  private,  rare  courage  and  combativeness  in  pol- 
itics and  religion,  not  less  than  for  his  vast  acquirements.  No 
man  that  I  have  known  possessed  such  accurate  information, 
such  wide  personal  knowledge  of  persons  and  places,  men  and 
things  in  America,  and  his  wonderful  memory  enabled  him, 
without  a  moment's  hesitation  to  recall  and  utilize  all  he  knew. 
His  faith  in  Democratic  politics,  the  Christian  religion,  and 
the  rights  of  persons  and  things,  as  fixed  by  law,  bordered  en 
the  sublime,  and  he  was  never  so  happy  as  when  defending 
his  faith.  If  he  did  not  quite  hold  all  these  in  contempt,  Mr. 
Brisbane  certainly  had  contempt  for  one  who  did  not  get  be- 
yond or  above  them. 

"Well,  Mr.  Dean  happened  in  my  office  one  day,  and,  cu- 
rious to  note  the  result  of  a  meeting  of  these  two  friends,  I 
simply  said  to  him  that  I  desired  to  present  my  landlord,  went 
out  and  brought  in  Mr.  Brisbane,  and,  without  a  word  of  ex- 
planation, introduced  them.  Courteous  greetings  over,  Dean 
looked  from  under  his  shaggy  eyebrows  at  Brisbane  and,  in 
his  peculiarly  squeaky  voice,  said:  'McDougal  tells  me  that 
you  are  his  landlord.  Do  you  own  this  building,  Mr.  Bris- 
bane?' Being  answered  in  the  affirmative,  Dean  continued: 
'A  very  fine  building,  Mr.  Brisbane;  must  have  cost  $100,000. 
About  forty  years  ago,  Mr.  Brisbane,  I  read  an  English  edition 
of  Fourier's  works,  written  by  a  New  Yorker  of  your  name 
— are  you  related  to  the  crank,  who  wrote  that  book  ?'  With  a 
trifle  of  warmth,  Mr.  Brisbane  answered :  'Egad !  sir,  I  'm 
the  man  that  wrote  that  book.'  And  then  came  this  hot  shot 
from  Dean :  'If  you  wrote  that  book,  sir,  and  have  not  repent- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  303 

ed  of  and  been  forgiven  for  your  sin,  you  have  no  business  to 
own  this  or  any  other  building,  or  any  property  of  any  kind 
anywhere,  sir.'  And  his  voice  thundered  as  he  added:  'For 
the  author  of  that  book  was  a  socialist — a  damned  communist, 
sir — who  should  be  thankful  that  American  citizens  who  claim 
and  have  the  right  to  own  property  under  the  laws  will  give 
him,  when  he  dies,  all  the  property  his  carcass  deserves — three 
by  six,  sir.' 

"This  was  the  opening  gun  of  a  contest  royal,  which  lasted 
for  two  hours  and  forty  minutes  by  the  watch.  The  mighty 
gladiators  were  equally  at  home ;  they  fought,  not  with  sand- 
bags and  bludgeons,  but  gleaming  broadaxes  and  dazzling 
rapiers ;  blows,  never  below  the  belt,  were  given  and  taken ; 
powerful  arguments  logically  advanced  were  as  powerfull 
answered  until  to  me  the  sole  witness  of  that  battle  of  giants, 
it  seemed  that  the  broad  ocean  of  social  reform  was  lashed 
into  fury,  and  that  the  storm,  grand  as  it  was  inspiring,  shook 
to  its  foundations  the  mountain  of  religious  belief. 

"Dean  had  the  vantage-ground  of  practical  thought,  close 
observation,  wide  reading,  and  accurate  knowledge  of  fact  and 
data;  Brisbane,  that  of  world-wide  travel  and  association,  pro- 
found study  and  reflection.  Dean  argued  from  the  laws  of 
God  as  found  in  the  Bible,  and  those  of  man  as  found  in  writ- 
ten constitutions  and  statutes ;  Brisbane  brushed  all  these 
aside  and  squarely  planted  himself  upon  the  laws  of  nature, 
untrammeled  by  the  laws  of  man,  free  from  tho*  •  laws  which 
men  said  God  had  made,  and  argued  from  conditions  and  sit- 
uations, men  and  thinge  as  they  were,  not  as  perverted,  su- 
perstitious, ignorant  man  said  they  were. 

"They  differed  upon  every  fundamental  principle  which 
underlies  every  social  and  religious  problem — widely  differed ; 
yet  each  maintained  his  position,  and  from  his  standpoint 
argued  with  such  marvelous  skill,  ability,  learning,  and  elo- 
quence that  I  should  have  felt  sorry  for  any  other  man  in  the 
place  of  either. 

"I  loved  these  old  leviathans  and  never  wearied  in  observ- 
ing their  splendid  achievements  in  the  sea  of  thought,  but,  see- 
ing that  both  showed  signs  of  fatigue,  I  reluctantly  closed  this 
memorable  controversy,  satisfied  then,  as  I  am  now,  that  ] 
should  never  witness  such  another. 

"With  his  usual  politeness,  Mr.  Brisbane  bade  us  a  cou 
teous  good-day  and  retired.     After  minutes  of  reflection,  Mr. 


304  RECOLLECTIONS 

Dean  turned  to  me  and  said  :  'McDougal,  that  friend  of  yours 
is  the  most  dangerous  damned  communistic  crank  I  ever  met. 
Thank  God,  there  are  but  few  such  men  living.'  Later  in  the 
evening  Mr.  Brisbane  came  in  and  asked:  'Who  and  what 

is  that  friend  of  yours,  Mr. ?  I  don't  remember  the  name.' 

I  answered :  'Henry  Clay  Dean,  who  started  in  life  as  a  Meth- 
odist preacher  back  at  my  old  home  in  the  mountains  of  Vir- 
ginia; was  chaplain  of  the  United  States  Senate  in  the  early 
'505;  came  West  just  before  the  war;  quit  the  pulpit  for  the 
lecture  platform  and  the  law;  is  a  student,  thinker,  and  phil- 
osopher who  is  on  familiar  terms  with  perhaps  a  greater  num- 
ber of  American  statesmen  than  any  cne  in  this  country.'  Af- 
ter pacing  back  and  forth  for  some  time,  Mr.  Brisbane,  as  if 
speaking  more  to  himself  than  to  me,  said:  'Yes,  I  see;  I 
see.  He  has  not  outgrown  his  early  superstitions ;  is  a  very 
remarkable  man  in  some  respects,  but  as  near  a  lunatic  as 
any  man  I  ever  saw  outside  of  an  insane  asylum.'  "  (1893.) 

CHARLES  E.  CARH.NRT,  Chicago.  This  globe-trotter,  gen- 
ial gentleman,  accomplished  writer,  thinker,  and  worker  many 
years  ago  was  on  the  editorial  staff  of  one  of  our  Kansas  City 
newspapers,  and  later  on  was  at  the  head  of  one  of  our  insti- 
tutions of  learning,  but,  born  with  the  curse  of  wandering 
foot,  he  strayed  off  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  again  one  fine  day, 
just  where,  or  why,  nobody  knew ;  but  I  understand  that  he 
is  now  a  sober,  sedate,  useful,  entertaining,  instructive,  scholar- 
ly citizen  of  the  great  windy  city  by  the  Lake.  How  long  he 
will  remain  there,  God  in  his  wisdom  may  know,  but  I  am 
sure  no  one  else  does.  Nor  is  it  known  to  mortal  just  where 
he  will  go,  nor  when,  nor  how;  but  in  the  long  run  he  will 
doubtless  drift  back  to  America,  for,  like  all  other  good  an- 
imals, he  always  returns  to  his  habitat. 

Along  in  the  early  '905,  he  and  I  were  both  members  of 
the  same  Shakespeare  Club  here,  along  with  Fred  Howard, 
D.  Web  Wilder,  John  C.  Gage,  Dr.  Brummel  Jones,  Noble 
L.  Prentis,  Judge  Gillpatrick,  and  a  lot  of  others.  Our  name 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  305 

should  have  been  changed  to  the  "Don't  Giveadam  Club"; 
but  maybe  it  was  just  as  well.  Anyway  its  makeup  was  the 
only  one  I  ever  knew  about  that  to  me  was  just  right.  It 
had  no  constitution,  by-laws,  officers,  rules,  regulations,  or 
hours.  Its  aggregation  just  simply  came  together  at  the  of- 
fice of  Dr.  Jones,  at  such  times  as  might  suit  the  individual, 
but  always  once  in  each  week.  The  fellows  were  the  bright- 
est, brainiest  in  town,  and  every  man  save  myself  knew  a  lot 
about  Shakespeare,  which  I  did  not.  The  general  scheme  was 
to  ?it  around  as  long  as  one  wanted  to  and  read  and  talk  about 
the  immortal  bard  of  Avon.  Such  papers  as  were  read  and 
such  talks,  I  never  heard,  nor  did  anyone  else.  Some  one  was 
agreed  upon  every  week  to  prepare  and  read  to  the  others,  at 
the  convenience  of  that  person,  a  given  paper,  upon  a  given 
Shakespearean  subject.  One  night  there,  Carhart,  or  some- 
one, requested  me  to  write  on  and  answer  the  question,  "Is 
Hamlet  Insane?"  I  never  knew  anything  about  the  subject, 
but,  as  I  was  loyal  to  the  club  and  rather  fond  of  writing  once 
in  a  while  anyway,  I  said  I  'd  do  it.  I  bought  a  paper  book 
"Hamlet,"  without  note  or  comment,  and  religiously  studied 
that  play,  from  the  standpoint  a  lawyer  would  most  naturally 
take,  and  completed  and  read  them  my  work  in  1895.  My 
intention  was  to  polish  the  paper  up,  and  re-write  it,  for  I 
was  rather  proud  of  the  effort,  and  after  all  that  was  done, 
thought  I  would  print  it  some  day  for  the  edification  of  the 
faithful.  By  either  good  or  bad  fortune,  I  was  sued  by  a 
bank  on  that  very  day  for  many  thousand  dollars  more  than 
I  was  worth,  and  then  happened  to  leave  my  paper  in  the 
Doctor's  offices,  as  I  rushed  off  to  take  a  midnight  train  for 
Boston.  All  the  evidence  was  in  New  England.  I  was  gone 
East  taking  depositions  in  my  case  for  six  weeks,  and  on  my 
return  was  surprised  to  know  that  this  crude  effort,  just  as 


306  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  left  it,  had  been  printed  in  Kansas  City,  New  York,  and 
across  the  water.  Then,  too,  I  must  have  builded  wiser  than 
I  knew,  for  on  my  desk  I  found  many  letters  from  profess- 
ors of  English  literature  in  both  countries,  saying  that  my 
paper  was  the  two  hundred  and  eighty-eighth  book  or  pam- 
phlet on  the  same  subject,  and  was  the  first  answer  on  either 
side  of  the  ocean  to  the  same  question,  to  be  answered  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  lawyer.  All  this  was  new  to  me;  and 
then  five  hundred  reprints  of  my  paper  were  on  my  desk, 
with  the  compliments  of  my  fellow-clubmen. 

Ten  years  ago  I  spent  the  summer  up  at  Grand  Haven, 
Michigan,  and  on  my  return  stopped  for  a  few  days  in  the 
apartments  of  a  friend  at  Chicago.  For  some  years  I  had 
neither  seen  nor  heard  of  Carhart.  But  one  evening,  on  go- 
ing down  on  the  trolley  toward  the  Palmer  House  there,  I 
espied  this  genial  Bohemian  walking  along  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, and  alighted  at  the  next  crossing  and  greeted  him. 
Right  by  that  hotel  corner  we  ran  into  a  band  of  Salvation 
Army  workers,  just  as  they  commenced  to  sing  some  old 
hymn  familiar  to  both,  and,  as  he  had  a  sweet  voice  and  I 
a  loud  one,  for  some  unknown  reason  we  joined  in  the  song. 
At  its  conclusion  the  captain  in  charge  looked  us  over  and 
I  knew  was  ciphering  out  in  his  mind  just  which  one  of  the 
two  to  call  upon  for  a  prayer.  As  my  friend  was  growing 
a  little  bald,  wore  glasses,  and  had  a  sort  of  pious,  clerical 
look  anyway,  the  selection  fell  upon  him,  and  such  a  power- 
ful prayer  as  that  gentle  pagan  then  offered  is  seldom  heard. 
With  him  it  was  purely  a  question  of  skill,  and  he  had  it. 
'  Then  we  drifted  on,  and,  at  my  invitation,  landed  in  my  tem- 
porary quarters,  where  we  talked  most  of  the  night.  But 
very  soon  after  reaching  there,  Carhart  said :  "This  reminds 
me  of  a  night  I  spent  just  two  years  ago  with  an  English 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  307 

friend  of  mine  in  Bombay,  India.  Together  he  and  I  had 
toured  Ireland  and  Scotland  on  foot  some  years  before,  and 
of  course  were  quite  chummy.  On  this  evening  we  met  by 
chance,  and  he  invited  me  to  his  apartments  in  Bombay  just 
as  you  have  to  yours  in  Chicago,  and  gladly  accepted.  But 
wef  had  only  been  in  his  rooms  a  short  time  when  he  asked 
if  I  remained  the  some  incorrigible  Shakespearean  fiend  I 
used  to  be?  I  replied  to  the  effect  that  I  was,  because  that 
disease  seemed  incurable;  when  he  opened  up  a  British  mag- 
azine on  his  table  and  said :  'Here  is  the  most  remarkable 
bit  of  Shakespearean  literature  I  have  ever  seen.'  I  picked 
up  the  book,  glanced  at  the  article,  and  saw  that  it  was  your 
answer  to  'Is  Hamlet  Insane?'  And  I  then  said  to  him: 
'This  is  a  little  world,  after  all.  Now,  I  have  known  McDou- 
gal  very  well  for  many  years ;  we  were  once  members  of  that 
same  Shakespeare  Club,  and  I  was  present  at  Kansas  City  on 
that  evening  and  heard  him  read  this  paper.' " 

Carhart's  nativity?  No,  I  am  not  sure  about  that,  but 
assume  that  he  is  an  American.  One  who*  listens  to  him  for 
half  an  hour  as  he  either  talks  in  most  of  the  living  or  swears 
in  all  the  dead  languages,  as  I  have,  will  never  think  to  ask 
him  that  question. 

One  of  his  mottoes  for  years  has  been,  "A  man  that  is 
worth  saving  can  always  stand  the  truth."  And  maybe  he 
had  this  in  his  mind  not  long  ago  when  he  commenced  one 
of  his  letters  to  me  this  way: 

"In  the  name  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  and  upholding  the 
palladium  of  our  liberties,  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
(and  I  don't  give  a  continental  whether  Thomas  Jefferson 
perpetrated  that  on  his  own  hook  or  copied  it  from  the  Meck- 
lenburg,) I  send  you  greeting  and  hope  that  you  are  still  as  dis- 
satisfied with  this  thing  we  call  civilization  as  you  know  I 
continue  to  be.  In  order  to  make  sure  that  you  get  at  the 


SOS  RECOLLECTIONS 

gist  of  this  introductory  paragraph,  I  want  to  repeat  the  word 
'greeting,'  and  hope  that  after  a  few  moments,  while  in  the 
enjoyment  of  its  essence,  you  will  forget  all  the  confounded 
noise  coming  up  to  your  office  from  Ninth  Street." 

RICHARD  CAVANAUGH,  of  White  Oaks,  New  Mexico. 
Those  who  have  known  this  delightful  Irishman  longest  and 
closest,  content  themselves  by  simply  calling  him  "Dick." 

Dick  was  born  on  Erin's  Isle  about  seventy-five  years 
ago,  came  to  America;  and  the  year  1855  finds  him  a  private 
soldier  in  the  old  2d  Dragoons,  U."S.  Army,  at  Fort  Leaven- 
worth.  From  that  time  on  up  to  this  day,  Dick  has  been  by 
times  a  soldier,  a  wagon-master,  stage-driver,  miner,  ranch- 
er, cowboy,  and  always  on  the  frontier.  So  he  came  to  know 
the  peoples  and  places  on  the  border,  from  the  Missouri 
River  westward  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  better  than  anyone  I 
ha\e  met.  With  generals  in  the  Army,  as  well  as  with  Pres- 
idents, and  with  officers  of  railroads,  he  was  on  the  same  easy 
and  familiar  footing  as  with  soldiers,  ranchers,  teamsters, 
hunters,  and  cowmen.  With  Dick  they  were  all  simply  and 
only  men.  Who  shall  say  he  was  wrong?  He  never  mar- 
ried, never  troubled  himself  about  anything,  is  blessed  with 
that  uncommon  human  attribute  called  common  sense,  and 
in  some  way  absorbed  and  knows  more  than  most  of  his  fel- 
lows of  men  and  women  and  books,  and  such  an  interesting 
talker  as  he,  one  but  seldom  finds. 

He  was,  and  no  doubt,  among  his  old  comrades  in  the 
Soldiers'  Home  out  in  California,  to-day  remains  the  most 
artistic,  accomplished,  picturesque,  and  encyclopediacal  liar  in 
the  universe !  In  peace  and  war,  on  land  and  sea,  lake  and 
river,  I  have  met  and  known  many  artists  in  Dick's  special- 
ty, and  here  draw  no  line,  nor  make  any  invidious  distinc- 
tion, but  to  me  he  presents  himself  as  the  absolute  master  of 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  309 

his  craft,  and  among  them  all  stands  without  one  single  rival. 
Looking  as  innocent  as  a  baby,  with  laughing  blue  eyes, 
and  rich  brown  hair  and  moustache,  untouched  by  the  frosts 
of  the  years,  and  with  an  Erin-go-bragh  brogue  on  his  lips 
that  is  calculated  to  deceive  the  elect,  Dick  Cavanaugh  whiled 
away  many,  many  long  hours  for  me  when  I  was  ill  in  my 
cottage  down  at  White  Oaks,  New  Mexico,  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1902.  His  marvelous  fund  of  harmless,  half  histor- 
ical, half  mystical  yarns  never  grew  stale  or  tiresome,  and 
it  was  always  a  pleasure  to  listen  to  the  music  of  his  voice. 
Among  unnumbered  other  stories,  with  his  pipe  upside  down 
more  than  half  the  time,  I  recall  now  just  how  he  looked 
and  talked  as  he  sat  out  in  front  of  the  bed  on  which  I  lay 
one  night  down  there,  and  told  me  the  wonderful  story 
of  the  great  Indian  fight  at  the  Adobe  Walls  in  an  early  day 
down  in  the  God-forgotten  Panhandle  of  Texas.  He  was 
in  the  battle ;  but  how  few  of  our  men,  how  many  of  the  sav- 
ages, how  many  of  the  whites  within  the  walls  were  killed 
and  wounded,  or  how  many  Indians  there  bit  the  dust,  or 
how  many  days  the  battle  raged,  I  never  could  recollect.  But 
anyway,  our  side  was  victorious  in  the  end,  and  God  only 
knows  how  many  of  the  dead  Dick  helped  to  bury.  About 
all  I  could  recall  was  that  it  was  a  great  fight  and  a  greater 
victory.  After  I  got  well  and  came  home,  I  sent  Dick  a  se- 
ries of  typewritten  questions  concerning  this  fight,  its  exact 
location,  etc.,  etc. ;  but  he  wisely  refused  to  go  on  paper  and 
never  answered;  and  while  still  hazy  on  this  historic  battle, 
Dick's  story  about  it  will  never  be  forgotten.  My  intention 
was  to  print  it  as  Dick's  story,  with  his  rich  Irish  brogue, 
his  fancy  profanity,  and  his  hellity  devilty  cussity  dams  all 
thrown  in,  and  I  still  believe  he  suspected  this  and  for  that 
reason  alone  failed  to  answer  me. 


310  RECOLLECTIONS 

Among  other  merchants  who  freighted  immense  stocks 
of  goods  into  White  Oaks  in  early  boom  days  were  two 
Hebrew  gentlemen  whom  I  recall;  the  one  was  always  re- 
ferred to  (but  not  in  disrespect)  as  "Whiteman  the  Jew," 
while  the  other  was  a  Mr.  Weed.  With  these,  as  with  others, 
Dick  was  a  prime  favorite,  yet  nothing  afforded  him  higher 
pleasure  than  to  tell  many  stories  about  them.  Of  these:  A 
newly  arrived  preacher  named  Miller,  a  good  fellow  whom 
I  later  knew,  once  went  into  Whiteman 's  store  and  in  his 
breezy  way  asked:  "Have  you  any  religion  in  here?"  The 
old  gentleman  turned  to  his  son,  who  was  also  his  clerk,  and 
said :  "Ikey,  blease  look  through  ther  stock  and  see  if  ve  haf 
idt."  After  a  long  search,  Ikey  reported  that  the  article  was 
not  in  stock.  Then  Whiteman  turned  to  Miller  and  said: 
"Ve  dondt  haf  idt  in  our  stock  yoost  now,  and  if  Veed  dondt 
carry  idt,  you  '11  not  findt  idt  in  town."  At  another  time  Mr. 
Weejd's  bookkeeper  had  milked  a  tenderfoot  for  $2,700,  cov- 
ered up  the  theft,  and  left  town  with  the  money.  A  row  was 
raised  about  it,  and  the  committee  appointed  reported  that  it 
must  be  an  eirror,  as  Weed's  books  balanced.  Whiteman 
remarked:  "That  seems  square,  but  vill  Veed  balance?" 

On  the  White*  Oaks  face  of  a  great  triangular  boulder 
that  juts  out  from  the  mountain  side  a  mile  below  that  town, 
preacher  Adams  once  painted  the  legend,  "Prepare  to  meet 
thy  God,"  while  some  graceless  cuss  on  its  other  face  later 
painted,  "Stop  and  cat  your  meals  at  the  White  Oaks  Hotel." 
Re'ading  the  two  inscriptions  always  brings  a  smile.  No 
one  knew,  but  I  have  always  suspected  Dick  of  the  addition. 

In  my  wanderings  through  New  Mexico,  just  two  of 
the  many  digs  at  my  home  State  now  seem  worthy  of  pres- 
ervation :  Down  there  years  ago,  I  was  attracted  by  a 
scrawl c.l  pencil  epitaph  on  the  headboard  of  some  dead  cow- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  311 

puncher,  which,  after  the  name  and  date  of  the  untimely  de- 
cease, simply  said:  ''He  was  a  mene  man  in  some  things, 
but  a  damsite  mener  in  others."  Inquiring  into  the  history, 
etc.,  of  the  man  who  could  merit  such  a  send-off,  my  friend 
Dick  Cavanaugh  waived  all  this  aside  and  said:  "Be  Gad! 
sor,  that  eppitaff  was  stole  bodily ;  I  saw  it  with  me  own  eyes 
up  in  Idyho  way  back  in  war-times;  you  see,  sor,  a  Missou-' 
rian  refugeed  to  that  Territory  then  to  keep  out  of  the  bloody 
war,  and  not  long  afterward  the  vigilantees  of  Idyho  had 
to  hang  the  cuss  for  stealin'  horses,  and  they  put  that  very 
«ppitaff  on  his  grave-board." 

Through  the  ungodly  heat  of  the  desert  down  there,  I 
was  driving  on  a  buckboard  toward  White  Oaks  in  1902. 
Hot,  grouchy,  I  had  said  no  word  to  the  driver  for  perhaps 
thirty  miles.  But  as  we  got  out  of  the  san  1  an  1  started  up 
Ancho  Cafion,  in  the  Jicarilla  Mountains,  I  chanced  to  see 
to  our  right  a  poor,  unshorn,  bewhiskered,  dark-skinned  in- 
dividual sitting  in  the  shade  of  an  adobe  shack,  all  alone. 
Just  why  I  then  said  anything  must  forever  remain  one  of 
the  mysteries  of  that  country;  but  anyway  I  jerked  my  right 
thumb  in  the  direction  of  this  lone  stranger  and  inquired  of 
my  driver:  "Mexican?"  He  glanced  at  the  forlorn,  silent, 
motionless  figure  a  moment,  and  then  answered:  "Nope, 
Missourican." 

Like  the  rest  of  us,  Dicks  knows  that  man  contends  and 
fights  in  youth,  is  careful  and  cautious  in  manhood,  and  is 
mellow,  charitable,  and  conservative  in  old  age;  yet,  unlike 
the  few  we  meet,  these  considerations  never  bothered  him; 
this  cheerful  liar  was  never  known  to  lie  awake  nights  con- 
gratulating himself  that  he  was  incorrigibly  virtuous;  nor  in 
solving  problems  relating  to  the  unknown ;  nor  in  violating  the 
wise  injunction  he  once  struck  on  the  Pacific  Coast — "Don't 


312  RECOLLECTIONS 

take  yourself  too  dam.  seriously."  Semi-occasionally  he  be- 
comes hostile,  dons  his  blanket  and  war-paint,  and  wanders 
from  the  reservation  for  some  days,  and  maybe  his  life  has 
been  a  little  seamy  on  both  sides;  but,  like  that  other  serene 
animal,  he  always  returns — "and  the  cat  came  back."  So  it 
is  hoped  that  some  of  these  fine  mornings  will  find  good  o'.d 
Dick  smiling  his  "howdy"  to  his  friends,  back  among  them 
again  at  White  Oaks. 

WILLIAM  F.  CODY  ("Buffalo  Bill"),  Nebraska.  Atten- 
tion is  here  directed  to  Bill  for  the  reason  that  the  whole 
world  knows  him  through  his  Wild  West  Show,  and  he  is  a 
good  fellow  to  meet  and  know  anywhere;  but  especially  en 
account  of  just  one  story  not  generally  known : 

About  1887  he  and  I  were  guests  of  the  Paxton  Hotel, 
at  Omaha,  and  one  morning  about  nine  o'clock  met  in  the 
hotel  office.  The  big,  handsome  frontier  showman  invited 
me  to  repair  to  the  bar  for  a  "mornin's  mornin,"  and  I  de- 
clined on  the  ground  that  I  had  just  had  my  breakfast,  and 
it  was  too  early  anyway.  To  save  the  human  life  of  a  very 
human  friend,  I  finally  yielded.  Bill  backed  up,  put  his  el- 
bows on  the  bar  counter,  and  as  he  stood  that  way  said :  "My 
mental  and  physical  condition  this  mor.iing  is  precisely  the 
same  now  as  it  was  way  back  a  long  time  ago  when  I  was  a 
msmber  of  the  Nebraska  Legislature,  and  had  then,  just  as 
last  night,  been  having  a  time  of  it  with  the  boys  down  at 
Lincoln;  maybe  we  toyed  with  the  cards  and  the  liquor  not 
wisely,  but  too  well.  Anyway,  the  next  morning  I  started 
down  toward  the  State-house  with  old  Colonel  A.,  who  was 
also  a  member,  and  the  old  fellow  tried  to  talk  \nifh  nv  on 
many  matters.  He  got  no  response,  for  I  had  a  head  that 
you  could  eat  grass  with  and  didn't  talk;  at  last  he  stopped 
and  said:  'Say,  Cody,  do  you  know  why  you  now  remind 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  313 

me  of  some  of  our  counties  down  in  southwestern  Nebras- 
ka?' I  said  I  didn't,  when  the  old  chap  explained:  'It's 
because  you  are  not  worth  a  damn  without  irrigation.' " 

CHARLES   GORHAM   COMSTOCK,   of   Albany-St.  Joseph, 
Missouri,  was  born  back  in  New  England,  "time  whereof  the 
memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrary,"  came  to  Mis- 
souri long  before  the  Civil  War   (in  which  he  rose  to  the 
rank  of  colonel),  settled  at  Albany,  where  he  held  many  pub- 
lic offices,  amassed  a  competency,  and  now  keeps  up  establish- 
ments at  both  Albany  and  St.  Joseph,  while  he  and  his  good 
wife  spend  their  leisure  months  in  foreign  travel.     Never  in 
robust  health  in  the  forty  odd  years  I  Ve  known  him  inti- 
mately, this  modest,  retiring  lawyer,  thinker,  student,  bank- 
er,   farmer,  gentleman,   has  imagined   himself   by   times   the 
victim  of  every  disease  known  to  man,  but  still  studies,  works, 
and  travels  like  a  boy. 

I  first  met  him  at  a  hotel  in  the  little  town  of  Jamesport 
in  1868.  He  was  ill  and  I  a  law  student  over  at  Gallatin, 
the  county  seat,  ten  miles  away.  My  time  to  me  seemed  very 
valuable  then,  but  was  of  course  not  worth  much.  I  say 
of  Comstock  now,  as  long  ago  was  said  back  in  Virginia,  he 
bore  in  his  face  two  letters  of  recommendation  from  God 
Almighty — he  was  sick  and  a  stranger.  So  I  remained  there 
and  nursed  him  back  to  health.  Ever  since  then  we  have 
been  much  together,  each  at  the  home  of  the  other,  in  the 
cities  of  this  country  and  as  far  southwest  as  in  old  Mexico; 
while  in  the  conservation  of  his  vast  and  varied  interests, 
the  services  and  advice  of  no  lawyer  satisfy  him  quite  so 
well  as  those  of  his  life-long  friend. 

In  going  into  New  Mexico  with    him  in  1881,  we  spent 
several  days  each 'at  Las  Vegas,  old  Santa  Fe,  Albuquerque, 


314  RECOLLECTIONS 

Socorro,  and  White  Oaks,  thence  up  to  our  mines  in  the  Gal- 
linas  Mountains,  where  we  spent  that  summer.  We  arrived 
at  Las  Vegas  the  day  the  news  came  to  that  town  that  Pat 
Garrett,  Sheriff  of  Lincoln  County,  had  just  shot  and  killed 
that  greatest  of  the  outlaws  of  the  Southwest,  "Billy  the 
Kid."  At  Socorro  we  were  wined,  dined,  and  feasted  by  my 
brother  Luther,  who  then  kept  the  Park  Hotel  at  that  ancient 
Spanish  village;  but  our  most  glorious  treat  was  found  in  the 
rare  Muscatel  vintage  of  the  monks  of  the  earlier  years,  ana 
that  wine  was  never  once  missing  from  our  table.  If  here 
printed,  a  complete  recital  of  our  tragic  and  comic  personal 
experiences  for  several  of  the  days  following  Socorro,  few 
would  read  and  fewer  understand,  for  not  many  traveled 
through  that  far-away  country  in  that  day;  but  our  efforts 
to  get  away  from  the  town,  our  attempting  to  and  finally 
crossing  the  then  raging  Rio  Grande  del  Norte,  being  lost  en 
the  desert  after  dark,  the  buckboarcl  trip  over  the  Oscuro 
Mountains  at  night  with  a  surly  cow-puncher  driver,  heading 
the  Mai  Pais,  and  at  last  finding  our  friends  at  the  White 
Oaks  mining  town,  and  going  thence,  via  the  fleas  at  Ho- 
cradle's  Ranch,  to  our  mining  camp,  forty-five  miles  north 
of  White  Oaks  in  the  Gallinas  Mountains,  would  alone  fill  a 
volume.  What 's  the  use  ? 

From  our  camp  in  the  mountains  that  summer,  we  made 
frequent  hunting  and  fishing  expeditions,  and  around  there 
somewhere   I   now   recollect   that,   worn   and   tired   out   with 
our  unaccustomed  chase,  we  one  day  sat  down  to  rest  high 
up  on  the  mountain  cliff.      Something  in  the   surrounding 
scenery  impressed  me,  and  I  sang  an  old-time  song  in  a  voice 
that  is  now  never  heard.     The  Colonel  quietly  listened  and, 
without  a  smile,  simply  said :     "It 's  a  hell  of  a  pity  you  were 
not  born  blind."     Colonel  J.  H.  Shanklin,  Dr.  Edward  Mor- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  315 

ley,  William  J.  Spence,  and  many  others  were  there  in  the 
camp  with  us,  while  Robert  M.  Gilbert,  lovingly  called  "the 
old  war-horse  of  the  Pecos,"  was  our  cook.  Antelope,  deer, 
and  mountain  trout  were  supplied  us  until  any  kind  of  bacon 
became  a  luxury;  cards  were  daily  played,  cords  of  novels 
were  read,  and  all  reveled  in  the  unrivaled  forests  and  na- 
ture. That  was  the  first  full  summer  any  of  the  party  had 
ever  spent  forty-five  miles  away  from  a  town,  post-office; 
daily  paper,  human  settlement,  or  white  woman.  Our  mines 
were  located  in  the  mountains  wherein  the  Indians  of  old 
hunted  and  camped,  and  the  men  mentioned  were  all  officers 
of  our  company.  We  all  knew  that  a  mine-owner  was  proper- 
ly defined  as  "a  dam  fool  who  claims  a  hole  in  the  ground"; 
but  we  were  after  fun  and  recreation,  and  got  both.  Toward 
the  last  of  our  stay,  the  descendants  of  these  same  original 
Americans  went  upon  the  war-path,  and  were  reported  in  the 
States  to  be  killing  men  all  around  us.  This,  however,  did 
not  trouble  us,  for  we  were  unconscious  of  their  presence.  In 
coming  out  of  the  mountains  that  fall,  we  met  a  Government 
wagon-train  on  the  Pedernal  Mountains.  The  men  in  charge 
urged  us  to  return  and  go  southward  with  thetn.  for  the 
reason  that  on  the  day  previously  they  had  encountered  bands 
of  the  painted  war-path  red  dejvils  in  Cafions  Blanco  and 
Benou.  We  knew  our  road  led  us  through  these  two  cafions, 
and  held  a  council  of  war.  But  among  the  four  of  us,  Colo- 
nels Shanklin  and  Comstock,  myself,  and  our  Mexican  guide, 
we  found  we  aggregated  sixty-six  shots,  with  ample  ammuni- 
tion. Hence  it  was  agreed  that  we  drive  on  to  the  railroad 
at  Las  Vegas.  Through  our  field-glasses  we  saw  painted  In- 
dians, on  the  war-path,  in  these  two  cafions  that  day;  but  I 
had  the  reins  and  worked  the  brake,  and  at  the  end  of  a  sixty- 
five-mile  drive,  we  arrived  before  nightfall  at  the  Baca  Pass 


316  RECOLLECTIONS 

on  the  Rio  Pecos,  and  all  our  troubles  were  over.  For  their 
rainy  sebson  was  still  on,  the  Pecos  was  raging,  and  not  less 
than  300  persons  were  then  waiting  on  the  banks  for  its  wa- 
ters to  subside  so  that  they  might  get  across.  Then  our  old 
friend,  Tom  Osby,  with  his  alleged  Mexican  wife,  lived  at 
and  was  keeping  the  Pass,  and  Tom  cheerfully  supplied  us 
with  German  kiimel  and  a  place  to  sleep  on  the  ground  and 
under  our  buikboards.  None  of  that  party  will  ever  forget 
the  marvelous  rapidity  with  which  Tom's  liquid  fire  went 
to  the  tips  of  our  fingers  and  toes.  But  we  ate,  rested,  and 
slept  that  night. 

Together  Comstock  and  I  journeyed  to  New  Mexico 
again  in  1900;  but  then  by  rail  via  Fort  Worth,  El  Paso, 
and  Carrizozo,  and  thence  by  buckboard  to  White  Oaks  and 
on  up  to  the  mines.  We  left  Kansas  City  on  the  day  of  Mc- 
Kinley's  second  election  and  got  the  satisfactory  result  on  the 
train.  In  his  daily  walk  and  conversation  no  man  could  be 
more  truthful  than  Colonel  Ccmstock;  but  upon  our  return 
we  went  from  El  Paso  over  into  Old  Mexico  and  there  pur- 
chased a  lot  of  little  presents  for  loved  friends.  I  was  then 
an  old  hand  at  that  business  and  in  my  travels  had  learned 
the  important  fact  that  every  woman  is  a  natural  born  smug- 
gler. Following  their  illustrious  practice,  it  was  easy  for 
me  to  get  through  the  customs  officials  all  right  on  coming 
back;  but  when  Uncle  Sam's  servant  stuck  his  head  in  our 
car  and,  as  usual,  asked,  "Anything  dutiable?"  I  was  as- 
tonished to  see  Colonel  Charlie  look  him  squarely  in  the  eye 
and  hear  him  respond,  "Nothing."  Just  how  he  squared 
his  conscience  with  that  response  I  never  knew,  nor  asked. 

Upon  our  return  from  El  Paso,  at  the  station  there  we 
aw.aited  a  later  train  connection,  and  this  gave  us  an  oppor- 
tunity to  study  three  ragged  hoboes  who  had  been  up  all  night 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  317 

long  celebrating  the  coming  separation  from  one  of  their  num- 
ber who  was  to  go  eastward  on  our  train.  One  was  Irish, 
another  German,  while  the  third  must  forever  remain  with- 
out classification.  Maybe  he  was  a  citizen  of  the  world,  a 
cosmopolite,  but  he  was  certainly  just  as  dirty,  noisy,  and  as 
drunk  as  his  fellows.  They  occasionally  drank  "red  licker" 
out  of  a  bottle,  and  talked,  wept,  and  sung  songs  the  rest  of 
the  time.  We  drew  nigh  for  closer  observation,  inspection, 
and  contemplation,  and  I  never  so  strongly  realized  as  on 
that  morning  that  one  first-class  Bohemian  and  hobo  sadly 
missed  his  calling  the  day  I  chose  the  legal  profession.  Wob- 
bling around  the  station  grounds,  holding  on  to  each  other 
to  keep  from  falling,  the  trio  unconsciously  presented  an  apt 
illustration  of  the  old  Kentucky  motto,  "United  we  stand, 
divided  we  fall."  With  many  a  halt  and  stumble  and  jerk, 
all  out  of  tune,  to  the  air  of  "Just  as  the  sun  went  down," 
they/  gave  us  one  song,  the  chorus  of  which  ran  this  way: 

"The  Kid  held— a  brickbat— in  his  right  hand, 

Another — was  held  by — McGowan. 
The   Son— called   his   Father— an   A.   P.   A.— 
Just  then — the   Son — went — dowan." 

One  night  about  thirty  years  ago,  in  his  office  at  Albany, 
the  Colonel  gave  me  all  the  known  facts  relating  to  what  then 
seemed  the  most  complex  and  mysterious  land  proposition 
of  my  practice.  In  brief  they  were:  That  originally  this 
land  stood  on  the  public  records  in  the  name  of  one  Wal- 
ter McDowell;  it  consisted  of  a  large  tract  on  the  Empire 
Prairie,  where  the  thriving  town  of  King  City  is  now  located, 
was  then  worth  about  ninety  thousand  dollars,  and  no  one 
else  claiming  to  be  the  owner,  Comstock  had  first  taken  it  in 
on  a  tax  title  deed;  and  it  was  later  conveyed  to  him  by  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Walter  McDowell,  whom  he  was  beginning 


318  RECOLLECTIONS 

.to  suspect  v/as  not  its  lawful  owner;  and  a  firm  of  St.  Joseph 
lawyers  were  threatening  suits  to  recover  the  property.  The 
Colonel's  lawyer-like  recital  of  all  these  facts  so  impressed 
me  that  at  the  close  of  his  story  I  asked,  "But  who  the  hell 
is  Walter  McDowell?"  The  solemn  and  only  answer  was: 
"I  would  give  ten  thousand  dollars  in  gold  to  know."  The 
results  of  our  joint  efforts  were  that  to  every  postmaster  in 
America  an  inquiry  was  sent  to  ascertain  the  real  man ;  a  de- 
tective was  kept  employed  for  many  months  searching  the 
country;  but  the  right  party  was  not  located.  Meanwhile 
we  learned  that  our  deed  had  been  given  by  a  Pennsylvania 
mountaineer  who  never  owned  a  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
property  in  his  life,  and  that  it  was  worthless.  Following  up 
some  now-forgotten  clue,  the  Colonel  then  sent  me  to  Chilli- 
cothe,  Ohio,  and  thence  to  Philadelphia  and  on  to  Slating- 
ton,  in  Pennsylvania,  and  at  these  several  places  the  true 
facts  and  simple  were  finally  ascertained  to  be:  That  the 
real  Walter  McDowell  was  the  "ne'er  do  well"  son  of  a  large 
Scottish  family,  from  whom  he  had  early  run  away,  joining 
the  British  Army;  that  while  in  the  service  of  that  Gov- 
ernment as  a  drill-master,  he  had  married,  reared  a  fami^, , 
died,  and  was  buried  in  Grettna  Green,  Scotland,  in  1848; 
that  in  ignorance  of  all  this,  his  wealthy  brothers,  then  Amer- 
icans, had  purchased  this  land  and  taken  the  title  in  Walter's 
name  about  1855,  to  make  a  home  for  him  and  his  family. 
In  my  desk  here  now  is  the  retain  copy  of  the  written  opinion 
given  to  the  Colonel  on  my  return,  to  the  effect  that,  under 
the  authorities,  neither  Walter's  surviving  children  nor  his 
family  could  recover  the  land  for  each  or  either  of  the  two 
reasons  there  given.  But  the  Colonel  thought  he  might  soon 
die,  was  determined  to  settle  the  case  out  of  court,  and  gave 
me  written  authority  to  draw  on  him  for  twenty  thousand 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  319 

dollars  for  deeds  from  the  McDowell  heirs.  My  protesta- 
tions against  this  unnecessary  expenditure  of  so  much  cold 
cash  were  practically/  unheeded,  but  I  did  get  time  to  write  to 
and  hear  from  the  attorneys  for  the  heirs.  When  complet- 
ed, after  a  labor  of  more  than  half  the  night  and  the  smok- 
ing of  twenty-four  cigars,  that  letter  I  wrote  them  read  either 
one  of  three  ways — it  all  depended  upon  the  way  it  was 
roared ;  and  then,  upon  its  approval  by  the  Colonel,  I  copied  it 
on  a  half-sheet  of  legal  cap,  just  as  if  it  were  written  at  the 
noon  hour  in  court  and  on  th:  spur  of  the  moment,  and  mailed 
it.  The  net  result  was  that  Comstock  procured  his  deed  from 
all  of  the  McDowell  heirs  for  just  eight  thousand  dollars. 

That  lawyar  who  always  practices  in  the  city  misses 
a  lot  of  the  fun  of  the  country  circuit.  Among  the  many 
land  cases  I  then  tried  for  Colonel  Comstock  up  in  Gentry 
County,  I  now  recall  one  in  which  one  James  Grimsley  was 
a  witness  for  the  other  side  and  dead  against  us,  but  we  had 
to  rely  upon  him.  His  neighbors  down  about  Greejnwell 
Ford  always  called  him  "Old  Jim."  In  some  way  I  had 
learned  that  he  was  originally  from  Rockbridge  County, 
in  my  native  State,  and  to  the  early  settlers  of  the  Grand 
River  country  used  to  boast  that  back  there  he  Had  helped 
to  haul  the  stones  that  built  the  Natural  Bridge  of  Virginia? 
The  case  was  desperately  close ;  the  opposing  counsel  had  not 
called  upon  "Old  Jim."  So  I  arose  from  the  counsel  table, 
looked  over  the  audience,  and  in  a  loud  voice  inquired : 
"Is  Major  Grimsley  in  the  court-room?"  He  had  never 
been  called  "Major"  before  in  his  long  life,  and,  as  I  hoped, 
with  the  utmost  dignity,  got  up  from  his  seat  and  in  an  equal- 
ly loud  tone  answered:  "He  is,  suh."  "Will  you  please 
come  around  and  be  sworn  as  a  witness,  Major?"  He  said, 
"With  the  greatest  pleasure,  suh."  During  his  entire  ex- 


320  RECOLLECTIONS 

animation  I  employed  the  soft  accent  of  the  South  and  never 
once  failed  to  speak  of  him  as  a  Southern  gentleman,  nor 
to  address  him  as  "Major  Grimsley."  He  was  a  most  ex- 
cellent witness  for  us,  told  the  whole  truth  as  it  was,  and 
we  won,  while  the  "Major"  died  in  the  belief  that  I  was  the 
one  great  lawyer  of  the  age ! 

This  further  incident  is  mentioned  for  the  double  pur- 
pose of  directing  attention  to  the  words  hereinafter  quoted 
and  concurring  in  the  wise  conclusion.  I  have  noticed  that 
when  busiest,  there  is  time  for  everything;  but  with  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  do,  there  is  never  time  for  anything.  One 
bright  Sunday  morning  long  ago,  with  John  Townshend,  of 
New  York,  whose  great  legal  treatise  of  "Libel  and  Slander" 
has  long  been  standard  authority,  I  was  out  in  the  garden, 
and  he  and  I  were  talking  and  devouring  many  of  Colonel 
Comstock's  rich  red  strawberries  up  at  Albany.  The  Judge 
and  the  Colonel  wore  cousins  and  schoolboy  friends  back 
East,  and  Townshend  spent  many  of  his  vacations  in  the 
West.  I  happened  to  say  something  about  one  of  my  tardy 
correspondents  who  in  the  belated  answer  just  received  had 
apologized  for  the  alleged  reason  that  he  "had  not  had  the 
time"  to  write  me  sooner.  Townshend  looked  around  and  in 
his  earnest  and  emphatic  way  said:  "Young  man,  whenever 
a  man  hereafter  writes  that  way  to  you,  set  it  down  that  he 
is  a  damned  liar!" 

A  tenant  on  one  of  Colonel  Comstock's  farms  down  on 
Grand  River,  whose  name  I  think  is  Dobson,  told  me  long 
after  I  came  to  Kansas  City  of  an  earnest  effort  which  he 
had  once  made  to  induce  a  brother  of  his  to  introduce  him- 
self to  and  become  acquainted  with  me,  and  with  pleasure 
and  no  little  pride  I  now  recall  the  impressively  solemn  way 
this  untutored  son  of  the  soil  closed  his  recital  of  wrestling 


A  Few  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  321 

with  this  brother  in  this  way :  "I  '11  tell  you,  Joe,  that  when 
you  look  at  this  feller  as  he  goes  into  court,  or  listen  to  him 
as  he  talks  to  the  Judge  or  a  jury,  he  seems  so  all-fired  seri- 
ous that  you  'd  think  he  'd  bite  a  ten-penny  nail  in  two ;  but 
say,  you  get  out  with  him  once,  as  I  've  been,  and  you  '11  soon 
find  out  that  he's  just  the  commonest  feller  you  ever  met!" 

WILLIAM  ("Bill")  DEVERE,  Colorado.  Bill  and  I  had 
lived  a  long  time,  and  in  the  West  too,  before  we  met.  He 
was  then  an  actor,  and  was  the  only  one  of  that  class  whom 
I  have  known  that  did  not  have  to  "make  up,"  for  he  always 
appeared  upon  the  stage  in  the  same  clothes,  and  with  the 
same  manners,  talk,  and  all  that,  which  he  appeared  in  field, 
mine,  street,  or  anywhere  else.  Then  he  had  at  odd  times 
in  his  life  had  been  a  teacher,  bar-tender,  preacher,  prospector, 
miner,  poet,  mine-owner,  reporter,  Bohemian,  editor,  cow- 
puncher,  drunkard,  actor,  merchant,  saloon-keeper,  trader, 
and  in  the  meanwhile  had  both  made  and  lost  colossal  for- 
tunes. But  in  writing  his  verses  he  appealed  to  me  because 
he  got  down  to  and  wrestled  with  men  and  women  and  things 
as  he  saw  them  and  as  they  are;  while  his  acting  on  the 
boards  was  always  just  as  natural  and  human.  So  this  art- 
ist of  nature  got  close  to  me,  not  only  because  of  his  human 
poetry  and  natural  acting,  but  then  somehow  liked  old  Bill 
anyway. 

There  was  good  blood  in  Bill's  veins;  he  was  carefully 
educated,  traveled,  and  accomplished;  but  for  some  unknown 
reason  wandered  from  home  when  young  and  finally  drifted 
into  the  gold  mines  of  the  far  West.  He  might  not  have 
proven  a  glittering  success  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  New 
York  or  Boston;  I  never  saw  him  there;  but  it  is  certain  that 
his  Eastern  hearers  would  not  have  remained  in  darkness 


322  RECOLLECTIONS 

very  long,  for  he  always  talked  well  and  brains  and  thought 
were  behind  his  every  utterance.  He  was  most  at  honu>  in 
the  freedom  of  nature  as  he  found  it  in  the  Rocky  Mountains 
long  ago;  and  I  never  knew  it  if  there  was  anything  he  could 
not  do  on  the  frontier.  Cook  at  a  smoky  campfire,  spin 
yarns  to  the  "boys,"  dash  off  poetry  on  any  conceivable  sub- 
ject, sing  a  hymn  to  melt  the  heart,  or  preach  a  sermon  of 
rare  power  and  pathos,  these  we(re  only  a  few  of  his  varied 
and  various  accomplishments. 

In  one  of  his  poems,  read  years  before  we  met,  Bill  tells 
the  story  of  his  life.  I  think  it  is  entitled  "Walk,  Jist  Walk." 
Anyway,  after  the  manner  of  the  Rockies,  roughing  it  in  that 
country  for  long  years,  Bill  became  the  owner  of  a  rich  mine, 
sold  it  at  a  tremendous  figure,  got  the  money  and  drafts,  and 
started  to  "God's  country,,"  to  spend  a  few  years  in  peace 
and  plenty  at  his  childhood  home  "back  in  the  States."  At 
Denver,  however,  he  fell  in  with  a  lot  of  boon  companions 
and,  instead  of  going  on  to  the  old  home,  as  fully  intended, 
he  spends  the  winter  in  riotous  living  with  these  boys  and 
girls — drinks,  gambles,  attends  theaters,  dance-houses,  etc. — 
with  the  result  that  in  the  spring  he  finds  himself  without 
a  dollar  or  a  friend.  Cursing  his  false  friends,  his  folly, 
weakness,  and  bad  luck,  he  starts  on  foot  back  to  the  mines 
in  the  mountains  alone,  to  regain  his  lost  fortune.  As  he 
tramps  along  the  dry,  dusty  road,  a  rancher  driving  a  lumber 
wagon  overtakes  him  and  urges  him  to  get  in  and  ride.  But 
Bill  spurns  this  offer,  and  begs  the  privilege  of  walking  be- 
hind the  wagon  in  the  dust.  The  driver  insists  that  he 
doesn't  "own  the  road  ahind  or  afore*,"  and  hence  our  friend 
may  walk  along  as  he  likes.  So  Bill,  filled  with  remorse, 
choked  with  dust,  walks  along  that  road  behind  the  wagon 
and  truly  soliloquizes  his  life  story,  closing  each  verse  with 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  323 

his  "Walk,  dam  ye!  jist  walk."  A  volume  of  Bill's  poems 
was  published  about  a  dozen  years  ago;  but,  like  our  friend 
Eugene  Field,  he  reserved  for  private  circulation  among  a 
few  chosen  friends  the  really  bright,  wise,  witty,  wicked  poet- 
ry and  prose  that  flowed  at  will  from  his  versatile  pen. 

THOMAS  DUNN  ENGLISH,  New  Jersey.  When  I  saw 
and  knew  and  enjoyed  talking  with  this  gentleman,  he  was 
a  tall,  white-haired,  white-moustached  member  of  the  Lower 
House  of  the  Federal  Congress  at  Washington,  and  one  of 
the  most  popular  and  best  beloved  men  then  in  public  life. 
Long  after  coming  West,  I  was  once  talking  about  English 
with  Dr.  Robert  W.  Witten,  the  father  of  my  lawyer  friends 
Thomas  A.  and  William  Wirt  Witten,  when  this  venerable 
gentleman  told  me  that  he  and  Dr.  English  had.  together 
started  in  life  as  young  men  engaged  in  the  practice  of  med- 
icine, at  the  little  town  of  Beckley  in  Raleigh  County,  West 
Virginia,  and  that  Dr.  English  had  then  written  in  early  life 
all  save  the  last  verse  of  the  poem,  upon  which  his  chief  claim 
to  fame  now  rests — "Ben  Bolt."  After  he  went  back  East 
and  permanently  located,  Dr.  English  completed  his  verses 
at  the  request  of  Nathaniel  Parker  Willis,  who  printed  them 
in  his  New  York  Magazine.  The  man  who  made  "Ben  Bolt" 
famous  and  put  it  into  the  mouth  of  every  American  and 
English  singer  as  a  song,  however,  was  not  its  author;  but  a 
brainy,  clever,  Bohemian  minstrel  named  Nelson  Kneass,  of 
Baltimore,  Maryland. 

Among  many  personal  reminiscences  of  their  early  years 
in  the  mountains,  Dr.  Witten  once  told  me  this  story  about 
himself  and  Dr.  English:  The  latter  had  a  sudden  profes- 
sional call  out  in  the  country  and,  his  own  riding-horse  being 
lame,  he  borrowed  Dr.  Witten's  thoroughbred  race-mare  for 


324  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  trip.  Dr.  English  rode  off  all  right,  but  a  mile  up  the 
road  the  mare  became  frightened  and  ran  away  with  him, 
back  home.  Reading  in  his  office,  Dr.  Witten  heard  the  clat- 
ter of  her  hoofs  on  the  stony  highway  and  ran  out.  At 
break-neck  speed  the  thoroughbred  came  thundering  down  the 
road  With  Dr.  English  holding  on  to  her  mane.  At  the  gate 
leading  to  her  stall  in  the  barn  she  stopped  with  a  sudden 
jerk,  but  flying  over  her  head,  on  went  Dr.  English  into  the 
barnyard.  Thinking  beyond  doubt  that  this  fall  had  killed 
him,  Dr.  Witter  ran  to  see  if  there  was  anything  he  could 
do,  and  was  overjoyed  to  see  the  unhurt  Dr.  English  jump 
to  his  feet  and  hear  him  say :  "Be  God !  Doc,  I  brought 
your  horse  back.'' 

Many  years  ago,  at  a  term  of  the  Chillicothe  court,  I 
met  Colonel  Caspar  W.   Bell,  of  Keytesville,   Missouri.     He 
was  one  of  the  really  brilliant  speakers  among  the  passing 
lawyers  of  the  old  days,  a  talker  of  rare  charm,  and  had  rep- 
resented his  district  in  the  Confederate   Congress   at   Rich- 
mond, Virginia.     The  book  "Trilby"  was  just  out,  and  the 
old  song  of   "Ben   Bolt"  was  then  being  revived  and   sung 
throughout    the   country    upon    its    dramatization.     The    talk 
somehow  turned  on  "Ben  Bolt,"  and  Colonel  Bell  repeated  its 
every  word  and  line  as  no  one  else  ever  did.     In  fact,  it  was 
so  pathetic  that  if  a  wooden  Indian  cigar-sign  had  remained 
dry-eyed  during  Bell's   recital,   I   should  have  had  no  more 
respect  for  that  Indian.     Led  by  the  venerable  Bell,  every- 
body present  shed  a  few  tears  out  of  sympathy  for  "sweet 
Alice"  and  no  one  attempted  concealment.     After  this  reci- 
tal, Colonel  Bell  told  us  that  upon  his  return  to  Missouri 
after  the  war,  he  met  in  the  old  Browning  House  at  Chil- 
licothe,  in    1868,   his   old,   life-long1,   beloved    frietnd    Nelson 
Kneass;  that  the  two  proceeded  to  celebrate  the  happy  re- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  325 

union  in  due  and  ancient  form,  and  that  when  he  came  out 
of  his  illness,  his  dear  friend  Kneass  had  there  died  and  had 
then  been  laid  to  rest  in  a  spot  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  "in  a  cor- 
ner obscure  and  lone,"  in  Edgewood  Cemetery  at  Chillicothe. 

In  1905,  I  am  told,  the  body  of  the  song-bird's  wife  was 
laid  beside  that  of  her  long-gone  husband,  and  so  Nelson 
Kneass  and  his  wife,  together  again,  sleep  the  last  long  sleep. 
Colonel  Bell  is  gone,  so  is  Billy  Leach,  who  buried  Xelson 
Kneass,  and  so  are  very  many  of  the  good  friends  known 
and  loved  at  Chillicothe  in  the  late  '6os. 

In  that  same  little  village  of  Beckley,  away  along  be- 
fore the  war,  a  brilliant  yet  dreamy  young  attorney,  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Stephen  Adams  (who  later  removed  to  and 
became  famous  as  a  lawyer  and  statesman  at  Petersburg, 
Virginia),  started  in  to  practice  his  profession  at  the  same 
time,  and  there  wrote  the  words  and  the  music  of  another 
song  wider  known  than  "Ben  Bolt"  and  better  in  all  ways. 
It  is  "The  Blue  Alsatian  Mountains." 

FREDERICK  HOWARD,  Kansas  City,  Missouri.  The  whirl- 
igig of  time  may  bring  the  bottom  rail  to  the  top,  the  tomtit 
may  sit  in  the  eagle's  net,  dogs  and  other  animals  may  fight, 
but  in  the  quarter  of  a  century  that  I  have  known  and  been 
much  in  contact  with  Fred  Howard,  he  has  never  once  lost 
his  even  temper,  but  is  always  the  same  quiet,  unruffled,  level- 
headed, interesting,  instructive  gentleman.  For  many  years 
he  was  my  near  neighbor  and  we  had  law  offices  on  the  same 
floor;  but  of  late  he  has  been  in  the  mining  business  and  vi- 
brates between  Wall  Street  in  New  York,  Old  Mexico,  and 
San  Francisco.  Either  design  or  accident  has  thrown  us  to- 
gether in  very  many  places  in  almost  every  quarter  of  this 
continent,  and  besides,  he  knows  foreign  lands  and  peoples 


326  RECOLLECTIONS 

as  few  Americans  ever  come  to  know  them,  for  he  traveled, 
studied,  and  spent  his  time  with  them  in  an  intelligent  way 
for  years.  Modest  and  unassuming  always,  yet  his  vast 
learning,  wide  travel  and  thorough  knowledge  of  men  and 
affairs  have  given  him  such  splendid  self-confidence  that, 
if  necessary,  he  would  not  hesitate  to  undertake  the  task  of 
running  the  universe;  but  he  never  volunteers  anything.  So 
unerring  is  his  judgment  that  many  a  time  I  have  consulted 
him  upon  questions  relating  to  public  policy,  or  private  right, 
and  in  all  the  past  his  conclusions  have  proven  correct  and 
true. 

Over  twenty  years  ago,  Missouri  clients  employed  me  to 
go  down  into  Georgia  to  try  a  contested  noncupative  will  case. 
Under  an  old  English  statute,  in  force  in  that  country  from 
the  time  Georgia  was  a  colony  under  Oglethorpe,  real  estate 
may  there  be  devised  by  an  unwritten  will  the  same  as  person- 
alty. Fred  was  going  down  into  Florida  and  in  that  March 
rain  and  storm  we  two  traveled  southward  together,  and  were 
delayed  in  many  places.  There  were  a  lot  of  good  fellows  in 
our  sleeper,  and  I  recall  now  that  in  crossing  the  Black  War- 
rior Fork  of  the  Tombigbee  River  the  high  water  came  up  to 
the  ties,  all  had  to  disembark,  cross  the  river  afoot  on  that 
railroad  bridge,  and  take  another  train  on  the  other  side. 
Among  the  passengers  was  a  poor  woman  with  her  five  little 
children,  going  over  into  Georgia  to  join  her  husband.  Just 
how  I  managed  to  lug  two  of  those  babies  and  my  own  grip 
across  that  bridge  for  over  a  mile  in  the  rain,  I  don't  recollect, 
but  I  did  it.  On  our  way  eastward  our  train  was  again  de- 
layed at  the  little  town  of  Oxana,  Alabama,  where  all  stopped 
over  night  at  a  local  tavern.  The  landlord  refused  to  enter- 
tain this  woman  and  her  children  because  she  was  poor  and 
moneyless.  So  a  purse  was  made  up,  the  poor  family  guarded 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  327 

in  the  dining-room  while  they  ate,  and  for  that  night's  rest  they 
had  the  best  rooms  the  house  afforded.  All  this  so  outraged 
and  enraged  the  tavern-keeper  that  in  sheer  self-defense  the 
other  members  of  the  storm-bound  party  were  compelled  to 
and'  did  bodily  throw  him  out  of  his  house ;  we  gathered  up  a 
negro  with  a  fiddle  and  another  with  a  banjo,  and  to  theirs 
added  our  own  songs,  dances,  recitations,  etc.,  and  proceeded 
in  our  own  way  to  make  a  night  of  it,  while  the  landlord  and 
his  clerk  cussed  outside. 

The  next  afternoon,  as  our  train  was  approaching  Atlanta, 
Georgia,  I  had  gone  forward  into  the  smoker  and  was  there 
talking  with  a  friend,  when  a  tall,  rawboned,  lantern-jawed 
"cracker"  pointed  a  long  forefinger  to  our  left  and  said  to  us : 
"Right  there,  gentlemen,  is  the  place  from  which  that  old 
beast,  Sherman,  with  his  thieves  and  bummers  and  murderers, 
started  on  his  march  to  the  sea,  across  the  fair  fields  of  Geor- 
gia.'"' Maybe  I  was  a  trifle  grouchy  on  account  of  the  con- 
tinued rains  and  would  a  little  sooner  have  had  a  scrap  then 
than  not ;  anyway  this  reference  to  my  beloved  General  and  his 
men  never  touched  me,  but  the  wide  waste  of  sand  and  scrub- 
brush  did ;  I  couldn't  stand  for  "the  fair  fields  of  Georgia"  just 
then,  and  quietly  said  to  my  companion :  "Help  me  on  the  chor- 
us." So  I  stepped  into  the  aisle  and  in  a  loud,  full  voice  sung 
every  word,  note,  and  line  of  "Marching  through  Georgia."  To 
my  surprise,  and  possible  disappointment,  no  one  in  that  crowd- 
ed car  batted  an  eye  or  said  a  word.  As  we  were  even  then 
in  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  I  slowly  went  back  to  my  friend 
Howard  in  the  sleeper  and  soon  alighted  at  the  station  with  oth- 
er passengers.  We  had  dinner  at  the  Kimball  House  and  stroll- 
ing down  the  streets  later  on  I  happened  on  my  smoking-car 
friend.  He  told  me  with  great  glee  this  story :  "You,  of  course, 
recollect  that  slabsided  Georgian  who  aroused  your  ire  in  the 
smoker ;  well,  sir,  you  missed  the  best  part  of  the  little  matinee 


328  RECOLLECTIONS 

there;  that  fellow  watched  you  intently  as  you  passed  from 
our  car,  through  the  chair  car  and  until  you  closed  the  sleeper 
door,  and  then  he  turned  to  me  and  asked,  'Say,  stranger,  who 
is  that  feller?'  I  answered:  'I  don't  know  his  name;  but  he 
was  a  Union  soldier,  is  now  a  lawyer,  and  lives  at  Kansas 
City.'  As  we  were  slowing  up  at  the  station  here,  that  Georgian 
drew  a  long  breath  and  said,  'Well,  the  damned  Yankee  looks 
like  he  'd  fight  yit,  don't  he?'  " 

By  rail  we  got  down  to  Macon  that  night  and  at  their 
hotel  I  had  my  last  attack  of  sick  headache.  While  recuperat- 
ing next  day,  Howard  took  in  the  town  and  among  other  places 
their  cemetery.  Here  he  was  attracted  by  a  beautiful  marble 
shaft  erected  to  the  memory  of  a  Georgian  soldier  who  fell  in 
battle  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  the  stone  said:  "His  last 
words  were,  '  Tis  sweet  for  one's  country  to  die.' "  While 
gazing  upon  and  thinking  about  this  legend,  a  one-legged  Con- 
federate soldier  came  up,  and  Fred  said:  "That  is  a  beautiful 
sentiment;  I  wonder  if  these  were  in  fact  the  last  words  of  the 
dead  soldier?"  The  veteran  answered :  "Well,  no;  me  and  Bill 
there  was  in  the  same  comp'ny  and  I  was  right  nigh  him  when 
he  was  shot;  he  didn't  exactly  say  them  words  that's  on  his 
tombstone,  but  he  did  say :  'I  'm  shot ;  after  fightin'  for  nigh 
four  year  without  a  scratch,  it 's  tough  to  be  plugged  this  a-way 
now  by  a  dam,  mudsill  Yankee.'  " 

The  heavy  rains  had  demoralized  travel,  but  that  after- 
noon we  left  Macon  on  a  south-bound  train,  and  seeing  that 
we  looked  different  from  other  passengers,  a  kind-faced  old 
preacher  introduced  himself,  and  while  the  train  halted  at  a 
forlorn  town  without  any  sign  of  improvement  in  sight,  pointed 
out  to  us  from  the  rear  platform  the  lines  of  the  old  stockade, 
the  spring,  and  just  to  our  left  over  the  tops  of  the  growing 
pine  trees  the  Stars  and  Stripes  waving  over  the  graves  of  many 
thousands  of  Union  heroes  who  there  died  of  starvation,  dis- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  329 

ease,  or  wounds,  for  that  little  town  was  Andersonville,  Geor- 
gia. Still  further  Southward,  I  disembarked  to  try  my  case, 
while  Howard  continued  on  to  Florida. 

The  drives  and  rides  around  through  the  piney  woods,  the 
turpentine-making,  the  magnolia  trees,  the  flowers,  the  soi'r, 
dreamy  climate  of  south  Georgia,  and  all  that,  greatly  inter- 
ested me  for  each  of  the  ten  days  I  was  there  waiting  on  the 
other  side  to  go  into  this  will  case ;  but  the  details  can  be  of  no 
special  interest  now.  I  was  defending  and  won  the  case ;  but 
my  clients  lost  the  $40,0x30  of  real  estate  involved  in  that  will 
in  this  way:  At  the  trial  a  bright  young  newspaper  stranger 
happened  to  be  present  and  took  elaborate  notes  of  all  the 
facts.  The  strange  and  unusual  life  of  the  deceased,  the 
stranger  testimony  offered  by  the  proponents,  and  the  dead 
fainting  away  of  the  principal  witness  for  the  will  under  our 
cross-examination,  struck  the  young  reporter  as  so  highly 
dramatic  that  he  featured  the  story  by  enlarging  somewhat 
upon  its  many  novel  facts.  This  story  was  printed  down  in 
Georgia  and  so  attracted  the  fancy  of  another  newspaper  man 
•  away  up  North  that  he  there  reproduced  it  in  full.  That  the 
unexpected  may  happen  in  any  law-suit  was  fully  exemplified 
in  my  case,  for  the  story  as  republished  up  North  by  accident 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  only  child  born  of  the  unheard-of 
first  marriage  of  the  deceased  to  a  woman  from  whom  he  was 
never  divorced,  but  who,  though  abandoned  for  nearly  forty 
years  before  this  trial,  was  still  living!  Hence  that  son  was 
clearly  entitled  to  inherit  the  entire  estate  left  by  his  father,  to 
the  exclusion  of  my  clients  and  all  others.  So  it  goes ;  the 
longer  I  live  the  more  firmly  I  believe  in  the  old  saw — "Nothing 
is  sure  but  death  and  taxes." 

After  this  trial,  I  rejoined  Howard  down  in  Florida,  and 
there  at  Pensacola  again  fell  in  with  our  old  preacher  friend 
from  Macon.  From  him  I  learned  that  he  was  personally  well 


330  RECOLLECTIONS 

acquainted  with  our  mutual  friend,  Sam  Jones,  of  Georgia. 
In  talking  with  and  listening  to  Sam  only  one  of  his  many 
accomplishments  struck  me,  and  that  was  that  he  could  say 
a  pathetic  thing  in  a  more  pathetic  way  than  any  one  I  ever 
heard,  for  Sam  had  a  larynx  and  knew  how  to  use  it.  But  1 
didn't  know,  and  was  endeavoring  to  extract  from  this  vener- 
able friend,  just  how  Sam  was  regarded  by  his  neighbors  and 
friends  at  Cartersville,  and  finally  elicted  this  telling  response : 
"Yes,  suh,  I  know  Brother  Sam  Jones  very  well,  suh ;  we  have 
often  preached  from  the  same  pulpit,  suh ;  but  I  can  only 
answer  for  myself,  suh,  in  saying  that  I  have  long  regarded 
Brother  Sam  as  a  Christianized  curiosity." 

In  the  summer  of  1890,  we  met  by  appointment  in  Wash- 
ington City  and  fully  intended  to  wander  off  together  for  a 
two-months  rest  and  play  in  Europe ;  but  these  plans  were 
changed  and,  without  preconceived  purpose,  that  summer  was 
spent  in  "drifting."  First,  we  went  down  the  Potomac  to  Old 
Point  Comfort,  then  across  the  Chesapeake  Bay  to  Cape  Charles 
City,  and  from  there  by  spring  wagon  to  a  resort  called  Wac'n- 
aprague  in  Virginia,  an  Atlantic  Coast  town  of  which,  we  had 
just  heard.  The  greatest  excitements  of  our  two-days  stay  there 
were  an  attenuated  ex-slave  about  140  years  old  with  a  beau- 
tiful thirst,  and  a  yacht-race  for  a  watermelon  prize  one  Sat- 
urday afternoon.  So  we  drove  across  country  to  Accomac 
Court  House,  where  we  occupied  the  same  room  in  which 
Henry  A.  Wise  was  born.  Numerous  were  the  stories  told 
us  by  the  older  inhabitants  concerning  their  personal  recol- 
lections of  this  to  them  ideal  congressman,  foreign  minister, 
Governor  of  Virginia,  and,  lastly,  Confederate  general.  It  was 
while  representing  this  district  that  Wise  had  said  from  his 
seat  in  the  Lower  House,  "I  thank  Almighty  God  that  not  a 
single  newspaper  is  published  in  my  Congressional  District." 
There  too  is  recorded  the  report  to  the  Crown  of  Colonel  Scar- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  331 

borough,  giving  in  many  pages  all  the  details  of  his  expedi- 
tion against  the  Quakers  of  that  vicinity  in  1663 ;  and  as  to  the 
organization  of  his  forces  he  used  the  expression,  "and  then, 
in  addition  to  all  these,  I  took  along  about  forty  horse  for 
pomp  of  safety."  The  closing  sentence  of  this,  Wise  said,  was 
"the  most  eloquent"  he  ever  read;  but  to  us  it  was  a  little 
hazy.  From  this  report  it  is  also  apparent  that  Scarborough 
was  not  authorized  to  either  carry  these  recalcitrant  Quakers 
back  with  him  to  the  Colonial  capital  at  Williamsburg,  or  to 
execute  them ;  so  in  each  of  many  instances  he  further  says,  "1 

then  and  there  arrested and  placed  the  broad 

arrow  over  his  door."  We  knew  what  that  "broad  arrow" 
meant  after  the  Parliamentary  Act  of  1692;  but  just  what 
Scarborough  intended  by  it  in  1663,  no  historian  has  ever  beer, 
able  to  tell  us.  These  Quakers  had  denied  the  authority  of 
the  Established  Church  and  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia.  Tho 
latter  proposition  was  unthinkable  by  my  ancestors  and  hence 
the  row.  Here  we  struck  many  things  new  to  us:  The  pre- 
historic cannon  around  our  hotel,  with  the  sea-water  holes  in 
them,  mouth  up,  still  doing  duty  as  hitching  and  old-time  tav- 
ern bell  posts;  but  no  one  knew  whence  or  when  they  came. 
Two  hundred  years  before  we  were  there,  an  English  sailing 
vessel  attempted  to  cross  the  water  with  a  cargo  of  thorough- 
bred horses  for  use  among  the  Cavaliers  of  Virginia ;  this  ves- 
sel- was  wrecked  in  a  storm  just  off  our  coast,  many  of  these 
horses  drifted  onto  an  island  near  by  and  their  descendants  are 
to-day  there  known  as  "Chinqueateaque  ponies."  They  were 
not  larger  nor  prettier  on  the  salt  grasses  of  that  island  than 
are  our  Shetland  ponies;  almost  starve  to  death  before  being 
domesticated  on  oats  an  1  hay ;  but  after  they  pull  through  that, 
they  become  most  shapely  coach  ponies  and  trot  and  run  just 
as  did  their  long-ago  forebears.  Many  of  these  were  then  in 
domestic  use  on  the  mainland.  , 


332  RECOLLECTIONS 

From  there  we  drifted  down  to  Eastville,  the  county  seat 
of  Northampton  County,  Virginia,  and  while  there  examined, 
in  the  cramped  English  handwriting  of  that  day,  our  most 
ancient  continuous  court  records,  from  1632  up  to  date.  The 
"Eastern  Shore"  of  Virginia  was  settled  by  our  colonists  the 
year  following  the  settlement  of  Jamestown  in  1607,  and  being 
isolated  from  the  outside  world  by  the  Chesapeake  Bay  on  the 
one  side  and  the  broad  Atlantic  on  the  other,  the  French  ana 
Indians  wars,  the  Revolution,  the  English  invasion  of  1812, 
the  Mexican  and  Civil  wars  never  touched  these  people,  nor 
interfered  with  the  even  tenor  of  their  way ;  and  so  every  tertn 
of  every  court  has  been  there  held  on  time,  throughout  all  the 
years.  In  the  early  days  of  that  Colony  the  Church  and  State 
were  there  curiously  mixed,  and  from  their  earlier  court  rec- 
ords it  is  apparent  that  interchangeably  each  often  tried  cases 
for  the  other,  and  by  proper  decree  directed  just  what  penalty 
should  be  inflicted,  and  where  and  how.  One  of  their  early 
court  cases,  where  the  penalty  was  to  be  executed  by  the 
Church,  concludes  in  this  precise  language:  "It  is  therefore 
ordered,  on  the  depositions  of  two  witnesses,  by  this  court, 
that  the  syd  Marie  Drew  shall  ask  the  syd  Thomas  Butler's 
wife's  forgiveness,  in  the  church,  on  the  next  Saboth  ciay, 
presenting  herself  before  the  minister,  betwixt  the  first  and 
second  lessons,  and  say  after  him  as  followeth:  'I,  Mary  Drew. 

doe  acknowledge  to  have  caled  Joane  Butler  a  carted , 

and  hereby  I  confess  I  have  done  her  manifest  wrong.  Where- 
fore I  desire  before  this  congregation  that  the  syd  Joane  But- 
ler will  forgive  me  and  also  that  this  congregation  will  joyne 
and  pray  with  me  that  God  may  forgive  me,  or  I  also  suffer 
the  like  punishment  as  the  syd  Joane  Butler  hath  done."  And 
in  the  event  that  she  fails  to  comply  with  this  order  of  the 
court,  it  is  further  ordered  that  "she  be  tyed  by  the  thumbs  to 
the  tail  end  of  a  canoe,  thrown  overboard  and  twice  dragged 


A  FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  333 

across  ye  King's  Creek  in  ye  waters  of  ye  syd  county."  We 
spent  hours  in  our  search  for  the  writ  of  execution  to  see  just 
how  this  court  sentence  was  carried  out  in  the  church,  but 
never  found  it,  and  don't  kno.v  to  this  day  how  the  case  ended. 
That  record,  however,  did  settle  one  question — "Mary"  and 
"Marie"  were  one  and  the  same  among  our  early  pioneers. 

We  next  went,  by  wagon  and  sail  vessel,  respectively,  to 
Cobb's  Island,  out  ten  miles  from  the  mainland  into  the  At- 
lantic. A  few  weeks  there,  with  an  abundance  to  eat  and 
drink,  was  just  what  we  were  after,  and  there  too  we  met  and 
knew  many  characters.  Among  others,  we  struck  and  enjoyed 
the  society  of  a  pair  of  bachelor  girl  sisters  from  Williams- 
burg;  and  from  their  unique  apparel,  corkscrew  curls,  and  sim- 
pering manners  concluded  that  in  their  youth  they  must  have 
danced  the  stately  minuet  with  the  "Knights  of  the  Golden 
Horseshoe''  and  flirted  and  had  high  old  times  with  the  first 
boy  graduates  of  William  and  Mary  College.  Then  there  was 
a  Virginia  preacher  whose  clothing  from  his  shoes  up  to  his 
straw  plug  hat  were  all  of  gray,  and  who  swelled  through  the 
grounds  with  an  air  which  plainly  said,  "Ah,  you  poor  worm 
of  the  dust!  me  and  God  permit  you  to  be  on  earth  only  as 
long  as  you  act  like  me."  To  us  he  was  the  "Vice-God"  of 
the  Island,  and  was  in  evidence  only  one  day  after  his  proper 
title  became  noised  around.  We  met  the  prominent  wife  of  a 
prominent  lawyer  there,  spending  the  summer.  Built  on  the 
lines  of  a  pouter  pigeon  and  armed  with  a  boiler-maker's  voice, 
this  good  woman  was  on  parade  from  early  morn  till  dewy  eve ; 
but,  from  her  peculiar  motions  at  all  the  evening  dances,  we 
rightfully  designated  her  as  "the  bucking  walrus."  The  table, 
sea-food,  fishing,  bathing,  boating,  air,  crowd,  beach,  and  ev- 
erything were  all  that  could  be  desired,  and  we  were  sorry  to 
leave,  but  we  did.  In  1895  I  again  spent  some  weeks  at  this 
island,  for  from  the  coast  of  Maine  down  to  Florida  no  bathing 


334  RECOLLECTIONS 

beach  was  the  equal  in  natural  beauty  to  that.  It 's  off  the  map 
now,  for  some  change  in  ocean  currents  a  few  years  ago  swept 
it  away.  But  for  over  200  years  it  was  the  favorite  island 
home  of  many  people  in  the  sunny  South  during  the  summer 
months,  and  they,  as  well  as  myself,  will  regretfully  consider 
its  departed  glory  of  the  olden  times. 

The  "Eastern  Shore"  of  Virginia  is  unlike  any  other 
known  place  in  America.  It  consists  of  but  two  counties,  has  an 
average  width  of  only  eight  miles,  and  is  seventy-eight  miles 
long.  .Figs,  oranges,  and  lemons  grow  there ;  the  atmosphere  is 
soft  and  mild  and  the  people  are  "at  peace  with  the  world  and 
the  rest  of  mankind" ;  until  the  recent  coming  of  the  railroad, 
no  native  was  ever  dissatisfied  with  anything.  In  fact,  the  only 
objection  we  heard  was  a  mild  one,  mentioned  by  a  young  girl 
there  who  had  spent  some  weeks  up  North  the  winter  before 
and  there  learned  to  skate — they  never  had  any  ice  on  the 
"Eastern  Sho'."  Though  they  still  bury  their  dead  kindred 
in  dooryards  and  gardens,  sleep  on  feather-beds  the  year  round, 
burn  dip  candles,  and  draw  water  with  the  old  well-sweep, 
yet  better  or  more  hospitable  people  never  lived  anywhere. 
From  Cobb's  Island  we  went  down  to  Norfolk  in  Virginia,  and 
one  or  the  other  of  us  there  intimated  that  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  might  not  be  a  bad  place  to  spend  a  few  weeks,  All 
right,  and  to  "Charleston  by  the  Sea"  we  went.  That  was  a 
master  stroke,  for  to  me  the  three  most  interesting  historic 
cities  of  the  South  have  long  been  New  Orleans,  Richmond,  and 
Charleston.  Then  I  had  friends  and  clients  there  in  the  per- 
sons of  Mrs.  Anna  W.  Dargan  and  her  family.  They  owned 
and  occupied  the  great  old  Wickenberg  mansion  on  Ashley  Ave- 
nue and  had  often  urged  me  to  visit  them.  With  that  generous 
hospitality  which  characterizes  all  their  people,  the  Dargans, 
Wickenbergs,  and  others  showed  us  most  marked  attention  in 
their  excursions  up  the  Ashley  and  Cooper  rivers,  over  across 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  335 

the  bay  to  Fort  Sumter  and  Fort  Moultrie,  out  to  their  peace- 
ful and  beautiful  Magnolia  Cemetery,  and  elsewhere.  I  was 
never  prouder  of  Fred  in  my  life ;  for  he  knew  and  when  asked 
accurately  gave  the  entire  history  of  each  of  the  many  old  forts, 
rivers,  churches,  and  plantations  we  visited.  In  1903  I  made 
city  and  people  another  visit  of  some  weeks,  and  in  addition  to 
the  points  of  interest  which  were  already  familiar,  these  same 
old  friends  carried  me  over  to  the  Isle  of  Palms,  and  then  we 
spent  a  most  pleasant  day  up  at  Summerville  on  the  great  tea 
farm.  One  of  the  many  pleasing  old  customs  of  that  far  south 
country  is  that  in  passing  by  a  graveyard  gentlemen  raise  their 
hats,  ladies  bow  their  heads,  and  in  low,  reverent  tones  all 
murmur  two  words,  "God's  acre." 

In  some  way  Howard  and  I  happened  to  drift  from 
Charleston  up  to  Asheville  in  North  Carolina.  Since  boyhood 
my  mind's  eye  had  been  turned  toward  the  White  Sulphur 
Springs  of  Virginia  as  the  one  place  for  summer  rest  in  tlic 
South,  for  I  had  been  there  often,  and  then  it  was  in  my  native 
country.  But  Asheville  is  the  better,  for  one  can  either  go 
there  in  summer  or  winter  and  all  the  good  the  gods  provide 
are  to  be  had  there.  We  found  it  a  most  delightful  place.  But 
en  route  over  the  mountains,  we  abandoned  the  sleeper  and 
went  forward  to  the  smoking-car  to  meet  and  greet  the  people. 
We  found  some  negroes  there  with  their  instruments,  who 
could  pick  the  banjo  and  play  the  fiddle — the  mountaineers  of 
the  South  scorn  the  name  "violin."  It  required  but  a  few  dol- 
lars to  unlimber  these  boys,  and  what  with  their  music  and  the 
mountaineers'  dancing,  it  was  not  many  miles  until  that  smoker 
was  in  an  uproar.  Everybody  enjoyed  it.  As  we  were  near- 
ing  our  destination  I  engaged  a  long-haired  native  in  conver- 
sation and  told  him  that  my  friend  and  I  greatly  desired  to 
sample?  the  "moonshine  licker"  of  the  country.  He  was  cau- 
tious until  fully  satisfied  that  we  were  from  Missouri  and  had 


336  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  "be  shown,"  and  then  he  said :  "When  you  get  offen  this 
here  train  you  '11  find  a-standin'  right  thar  by  that  there  depot 
one  o'  them  damned  electrical  cahrs  that  runs  up  the  hill ;  you 
take  that  cahr  and  go  right  up  that  there  hill  till  you  git  away 
up  in  town ;  then  you  look  off  to  your  right  an'  you  '11  see  a  big 
sign  that  says  'White  Man's  Saloon';  git  off  an'  mosey  right 
in  an'  git  holt  of  that  there  whisky-man  an'  tell  him  what  you 
an'  Howard  is  after;  an'  then  tell  him  that  ole  Jim  Simpson 
sent  you  to  him  fer  some  of  his  moonshine  licker,  an',  by  gosh ! 
stranger,  you  '11  git  'er."  This  good  friend's  directions  were 
followed  to  the  letter,  and  he  was  right.  But  don't  make  the 
mistake  we  made  at  first.  That  corn  whiskey  is  as  colorless  as 
water,  but  strong  as  wrath.  Dilute  it.  Years  afterward  I  was 
relating  this  experience  to  New  York  friends  in  a  New  Eng- 
land sleeping-car,  when  one  of  the  gentlemen  said  that  for  forty 
years  he  had  stocked  his  cellar  at  home  from  this  same  "White 
Man's  Saloon."  From  Ashville  we  came  down  the  French 
Broad,  tackled  our  .first  guinea-egg  dinner  at  Knoxville,  Ten- 
nessee, and  came  on  home. 

In  1892  a  party  of  Godless  "jumpers"  took  possession  of 
our  mines  down  in  the  Gallinas  Mountains  of  New  Mexico  and 
my  Missouri  associates  insisted  that  I  go  there  and  straighten 
,  things  out.  It  was  a  long,  weary  trip,  not  unfamiliar,  and  I 
refused  to  go  alone.  Fred  Howard  was  selected  as  my  travel- 
ing companion,  and  together  we  went  by  rail  to  San  Antonio, 
New  Mexico,  and  thence  by  buckboard  100  miles  to  White 
Oaks.  President  Ben  Harrison  was  running  things  down  at 
Washington,  and  in  the  Congress,  Private  John  Allen  had  just 
made  a  speech  in  which  he  employed  his  then  famous  doggerel. 
About  two  o'clock  one  morning,  while  Howard  and  I  were 
colder  than  blazes,  each  smoking  in  profound  silence,  our 
driver  was  slowly  pulling  through  the  sand  of  the  desert  and 
to  me  it  seemed  hundreds  of  miles  from  nowhere,  when  sud- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  337 

denly  our  front  wheels  went  into  a  chuckhole — the  off  horse 
balked.  I  was  on  the  very  eve  of  both  saying  and  doing  things, 
when,  between  puffs  of  his  cigar,  old  Fred  then  and  there  calm- 
ly quoted  Allen's  lines : 

"Wanny  runs  the  Sunday-school, 

Levi  keeps  the  Bar, 
Baby  runs  the  White  House, 
And,  damn  it !  there  you  are." 

To  perpetrate  a  thing  like  that  in  such  a  situation,  hour,  and 
place  was  enough  to  restore  the  dead  to  good  humor,  and  in 
some  way  we  got  into  the  Ozanne  Hotel  at  White  Oaks  that 
morning.  Our  managing  director  was  sick  at  Punta  de  Agua, 
2co  miles  away,  and  without  him  not  a  wheel  could  be  turned ; 
but  during  our  weeks  of  waiting  at  that  hotel,  no  one  ever 
complained  that  idleness  was  included  among  our  many  sins. 
Excursions  on  mountain  and  desert,  horseback  rides,  carriage 
drives,  visits  to  mines  (the  Old  Abe,  1,450  feet  deep,  I  recol- 
lect they  told  us  was  "the  deepest  dry  mine  in  the  world"), 
were  of  almost  daily  occurrence ;  and  while  we  were  there  two 
theatrical  troupes  appeared  on  the  scene  at  the  same  time.  The 
American  troupe  was  called  the  "Studds  Grand  Opera  Com- 
pany" ;  while  the  other  was  a  Mexican  aggregation  with  a  great 
long  Spanish  name,  which  I  never  learned  to  either  spell  or 
pronounce.  •  We  attended  both,  and  my  enjoyment  of  the  Mex- 
ican affair  was  marred,  for  I  did  not,  while  Howard  did,  un- 
derstand the  Spanish  language,  But  both  played  to  crowded 
houses  every  night  at  not  less  than  three  dollars  a  seat.  There 
is  nothing  too  rich  for  the  blood  of  frontier  people,  and  each 
always  has  the  price.  A  trained  musical  ear  might  have 
yearned  for  music  other  than  that  then  made  by  those  two 
bands ;  but  to  me  it  was  just  right,  for  it  went  away  back  to  the 
soft,  sensuous  music  of  old  Spain,  which  there  had  its  origin 
with  the  Moors  long,  long  ago.  With  guide,  wagons,  and  oth- 


338  RECOLLECTIONS 

er  accompaniments,  we  started  before  daylight  one  morning 
to  explore  the  lava-beds  and  the  two  extinct  craters  in  that 
region  called  the  "Mai  Pais,"  a  dozen  miles  from  the  town. 
Picketing  our  horses  and  parking  the  wagons,  we  started  in 
on  foot  and  slowly  wound  along  to  the  upper  crater  right  at 
the  summit  of  the  lava.  As  the  crow  flies,  the  distance  is  only 
about  six  miles,  but  yawning  crevasses  in  the  lava  impeded  our 
progress,  and  we  must  have  walked  twenty  miles  in  all  be- 
fore that  crater  was  reached.  The  crater  itself  has  a  diameter 
of  about  200  feet,  is  depressed  at  the  center  like  an  inverted 
slouch  hat,  and  right  then  and  there  I  made  another  of  life's 
many  mistakes.  Our  guide  had  lugged  up  two  well-filled 
quart  bottles,  one  filled  with  old  Cutter  whisky  and  the  other 
with  water.  No  accident,  but  I  drank  out  of  the  wrong  bottle. 
(N.  B.  On  a  trip  like  that  never  touch  anything  but  water — it 
doesn't  do.)  In  the  process  of  cooling,  an  earthquake,  or  some 
other  convulsion  of  nature,  had  tumbled  that  lava  into  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  grotesque  shapes,  and  on  that  account,  as 
well  as  its  crevices,  we  often  had  to  walk  over  the  sharp,  jagged 
lava  for  miles  to  make  a  short  distance.  As  mountain  lions, 
rattlesnakes,  and  other  undesirable  citizens  were  often  met 
with  there,  I  carried  Howard's  Marlin  rifle  all  day  long,  and 
it  weighed  a  ton  before  we  got  back.  On  our  return  trip,  that 
Mexican  guide  was  accustomed  to  the  walk  and  Howard  was 
an  athlete,  and  the  result  was  they  were  soon  way  ahead.  I  be- 
came hot,  thirsty,  parched,  dry,  and  tired  nearly  to  death.  To 
lie  down  beneath  the  shade  of  the  few  scrubby  cedar  trees 
that  looked  centuries  old  was  out  of  the  question,  for  that  was 
still  hot  either  from  its  original  condition  or  the  sun's  ray  s. 
I  recollect  I  had  a  lot  of  currency  in  my  pocket,  and  thought 
I  would  gladly  have  given  it  all  tor  a  little  piece  of  lemon  to 
cool  my  parched  and  cracking  tongue;  but  alone  on  the  lava- 
beds  nothing  was  left  me  but  to  stumble  along.  When  I  got 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  339 

sight  of  cur  camp,  I  saw  old  Fred  and  our  guide  complacently 
smoking  in  the  shade  of  one  of  the  wagons,  cool,  satisfied,  and 
happy.  But  both  were  scared  out  of  a  year's  growth  by  my 
lamentable  appearance,  and  soon  had  me  lie  down  on  the  sand 
beneath  a  wagon.  Here,  to  restore  life,  they  first  gave  me 
cracked  ice,  claret  and  lemonade  out  of  a  spoon,  then  increased 
the  dose,  and  still  later  allowed  me  to  swig  this  stuff  by  the 
tumblerful.  Then  I  slept.  That  night  we  got  to  our  hotel  by 
midnight,  and  to  my  surprise  no  inconvenience  ever  came  to 
me  from  that  journey.  A  railroad  now  runs  just  east  of  these 
lava-beds  and  in  plain  view.  From  the  window  of  a  Pullman 
car  I  have  often  watched  them  for  miles  and  miles  in  traveling 
up  and  down  that  valley,  and  the  sight  is  a  pleasant  one,  but 
this  is  the  only  way  I  will  ever  go  into  that  crater  in  the  years 
to  be. 

In  time  our  business  manager,  William  J.  Spence,  recov- 
ered, and  Howard  and  I  met  him!  up  at  the  mines,  forty-five 
miles  north  of  White  Oaks.  Active  business  at  once  com- 
menced. We  there  soon  drove  to  Lincoln,  forty-three  miles 
away,  the  seat  of  justice  of  that  county.  Here  was  an  oU 
adobe  Mexican  town,  with  a  record  of  crime  within  the  mud 
walls  of  its  every  residence  and  business  house,  without  an 
equal  in  America.  For  this  had  been  once  the  home  of  that 
murderous  outlaw,  "Billy  the  Kid,"  and  of  Pat  Garrett,  wlio 
killed  him,  and  from  about  1878  to  1881  was  the  seat  of  the 
"Lincoln  County  War,'"  so  graphically  described  by  Emerson 
Hough  in  his  book  called  "The  Story  of  the  Outlaw."  Men- 
tion "war"  down  in  that  county,  and  every  frontiersman  at 
once  pricks  up  his  ears  and  expects  some  story  of  their  war, 
for  to  them  no  other  in  all  history  deserves  the  name.  In  that 
town,  150  miles  then  to  the  nearest  railroad,  four  men  met  by 
chance  who  had  each  traveled  over  and  knew  the  world — Fred 
Howard,  Colonel  D.  J.  M.  A.  Jewett,  Sheriff  Roberts,  and 


340  RECOLLECTIONS 

another,  whose  name  is  not  recalled.  To  listen  to  those  four 
as  they  discussed  all  foreign  lands,  their  trade  relations,  peo- 
ples, customs,  etc.,  was  alone  a  liberal  education. 

Among  the  many  remarkable  characters  whom  we  met 
and  knew  there,  was  Michael  Cronin,  then  the  judge  of  their 
probate  court,  and  a  Lincoln  merchant,  who  sported  a  linen 
duster,  boots,  and  a  plug  hat.  For  short  his  familiars  called 
him  "Micky  Cronin."  His  friends  told  us  that  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War,  "Micky'  was  a  sergeant  in  the  regular  Army 
and  stationed  at  some  fort  near  by,  maybe  Fort  Stanton  in  our 
day.  The  commissioned  officers  of  his  command  were  all  South- 
ern gentlemen,  and  purposed  to  carry  the  entire  command  into 
the  Confederate  camp.  At  dress  parade  one  day  these  officers 
all  made  speeches  with  this  end  in  view,  and  had  things  all  their 
own  way  until  Sergeant  "Micky"  obtained  permission  to  "spake 
jist  a  few  wurreds  to  the  byes."  But  he  spoke  with  such 
powerful  effect  that  at  its  close  every  officer  went  South,  wh'Je 
eve~y  enlisted  man  stood  by  "Micky,"  and  in  that  way  he  dkl 
more  to  save  New  Mexico  to  the  Union  than  any  other  one  man 
in  the  Territory.  After  Cronin  was  elected  to  his  office,  a  pomp- 
ous and  fine-looking  fellow  over  at  White  Oaks,  calling  him- 
self a  "colonel"  and  lawyer,  in  some  way  worked  himself  in 
as  the  attorney  for  a  little  estate  over  there  of  less  than  $300 
in  value,  and  charged  a  fee  of  $50  for  his  alleged  "legal  serv- 
ices" ;  then  he  mailed  the  first  annual  settlement  to  Colonel  Jew- 
ett,  a  lawyer  friend  of  his  at  Lincoln,  for  filing  and  approval, 
and  among  other  little  items  was  his  voucher  and  credit  for  this 
fee.  His  friend  was  in  good  faith  executing  his  instructions, 
but  Cronin  paused  at  this  item  of  charge  for  a  long  time.  The 
longer  he  looked  at  and  considered  it,  the  madder  grew  the 
court.  At  last,  without  a  word,  he  turned  over  the  voucher 
and  slowly  wrote  across  its  back,  "Disallowed.  M..  Cronin,  P.J." 
Then  turning  to  this  lawyer,  he  said:  "Colonel  Jewett,  plaze, 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  341 

sor,  return  this  account  to  your  frind  wid  the  complemints  of 
ihis  coort;  and  plaze  say  to  him,  sor,  that  as  long  as  I  am  on 
this  binch,  it  will  take  two  min  to  rob  the  dead  in  Lincoln 
County,  and  by  God !  sor,  Micky  Cronin  is  wan  of  thim."  At 
the  close  of  our  business,  Judge  Cronin  presented  to  Howard 
and  myself  each  a  quart  of  rare  old  peach  brandy  with  the 
simple  frontier  statement :  "Wid  complemints  of  your  frind  , 
and  this  coort  will  fill  full  of  lead  the  first  dam  man  that  say:> 
a  vvoord  about  payin'  for  the  licker." 

From  Lincoln  we  drove  by  buckboard  to  Roswell  on  the 
Rio  Pecos,  about  sixty-five  miles,  in  charge  of  a  Mexican 
driver,  who  spoke  no  word,  nor  understood  it,  of  English. 
Over  forty  miles  of  that  journey  was  made  through  the  most 
God-forsaken  desert  I  ever  saw.  No  moisture  had  come  to 
that  country  for  over  two  years,  an*  occasional  wild  bird  flev/ 
over  it,  and  the  ribs  of  even  the  poor  starving  prairie  dogs 
could  easily  be  counted.  Covered  with  dust,  dry,  hot,  and 
thirsty,  we  reached  Roswell  in  the  evening  to  find  that  neither 
love  nor  money  would  get  us  a  piece  of  ice  as  big  as  your 
finger,  nor  enough  water  to  bathe  in.  That  very  night  the 
drouth  was  broken  and  such  a  rain  as  came  down  is  seldom 
seen  anywhere.  Here  the  local  land  offices  were  located  and 
our  business  came  out  there  just  as  hoped.  Two  years  later 
I  was  again  in  Roswell  trying  our  mining  cases,  and  the  growth 
of  that  town  had  been  marvelous,  while  it  has  since  become 
rational  in  character. 

Our  next  drive  was  down  the  Rio  Pecos,  ninety  miles  to 
Carlsbad  (then  Eddy),  New  Mexico,  and  en  route  we  made 
short  stops  at  the  ruins  of  an  old  Indian-Mexican  house  and 
at  Seven  Rivers.  Here  the  graveyard  was  pointed  out,  and 
we  were  told  that  in  the  Lincoln  County  War  sixty-eight  men 
had  died  with  their  boots  on  ard  been  chucked  away  there  be- 
fore a  single  person  who  died  a  natural  death  wa<*  buried  in 


342  RECOLLECTIONS 

that  cemetery.  At  Carlsbad  we  struck  the  first  railroad  we  had 
seen  for  a  long  time ;  for  since  leaving  the  Santa  Fe  road  at 
San  Antonio,  we  had  traveled  by  buckboard  more  than  500 
miles  and  had  a  good  time.  In  going  by  rail  on  down  south 
to  Pecos  City,  Texas,  our  train  was  darkened  by  the  worst 
sand-sicrm  I  was  ever  in.  Indeed,  this  came  direct  from  tne 
west  and  was  so  severe  that  the  sand  pecked  all  the  varnish 
and  paint  off  the  west  side  of  every  car  in  the  train.  T,Ve 
spent  the  early  part  of  that  night  at  a  "baile,"  dancing  with 
Mexican  girls,  took  a  late  Texas  Pacific  train  for  El  Paso,  and 
went  from  there  across  into  Old  Mexico.  At  Juarez  we  strayed 
into  a  Mexican  restaurant,  for  which  I  have  since  searched 
in  vain  many  times,  and  there  ordered  and  ate  a  dinner  fit  for 
the  gods.  It  consisted  of  most  of  the  good  things  a  hungry 
man  can  think  of,  with  two  large,  juicy  porterhouse  steaks 
that  would  have  cost  $4  the  plate  in  New  York,  a  quart  of 
native  wine  each,  and  that  too  was  good,  and  the  bill  rendered 
was  only  50  cents  apiece !  Over  there  we  took  in  bull-fights, 
cathedrals,  agnadientc,  cock-fights,  theaters,  mescal,  and  all 
the  other  good  things,  and  the  same  was  true,  so  far  as  it  went, 
at  El  Paso  on  the  American  side.  At  that  visit,  as  well  as 
tince,  I  have  witnessed  many  a  bull-fight  in  Old  Mexico.  Then 
too  I  have  often  seen  our  American  game  of  football.  In  com- 
parison, the  former  is  less  brutal.  Occasionally  a  life  is  lost 
in  each,  of  course;  but  the  one  is  as  necessary  and  as  enjoyable 
as  the  other,  the  respective  civilizations  demand  them,  and 
luxuries  always  come  high. 

In  the  autumn  of  1893,  at  his  apartments  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, California,  I  was  for  some  weeks  the  guest  of  my  old 
friend,  Seymour  Dwight  Thompson.  He  was  there  complet- 
ing for  publication  by  the  Bancroft- Whitney  people  of  that 
city  h's  great  work  on  "Corporations,"  now  printed  in  seven 
volumes ;  while  I  was  on  the  Coast  settling  up  the  estate  of  a 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  343 

brilliant  young  man  who  had  once  read  law  in  my  office. 
Knowing  both  intimately  as  intelligent  globe-trotting  friends, 
I  had  for  years  tried  in  vain  to  bring  Thompson  and  Fred 
Howard  together,  for  their  tastes,  habits,  and  foreign  travel 
made  them  alike  in  many  ways.  To  my  surprise,  a  telegram 
came  to  me  from  Howard  one  day  saying,  "Meet  me  at  the 
Oakland  Mall  at  9  to-morrow  morning."  Thompson  was  de- 
lighted and  insisted  on  entertaining  both.  So  I  met  and  drove 
Howard  to  Thompson's  rooms.  On  the  way  he  said :  "I  have 
a  poetic  idea ;  you  and  I  have  met  at  many  places,  under  many 
conditions,  in  the  East,  West,  North,  and  South,  but  this  is  om 
first  meeting  on  the  Coast.  Now  this  poetic  idea  of  mine  is  to 
get  you  and  Thompson  in  a  carriage,  drive  out  to  the  Cliff 
House,  and  there  on  the  balcony  and  directly  over  the  water 
take  one  nip  of  good  old  Bourbon  to  the  Pacific  Ocean."  The 
invitation  was  accepted  and  the  carriage,  the  dinner,  and  tlw 
drinks  were  all  ours.  All  three  worked  through  the  day,  but 
at  night  there  was  always  a  dinner  at  old  Campi's,  or  some  oth- 
er place  equally  as  good,  and  such  talks  as  we  had  at  Thomp- 
son's quarters  no  one  ever  listened  to.  One  dinner  down  town  I 
now  recall :  As  often  happened,  Howard  and  Thompson  were 
discussing  foreign  travels ;  I  was  dumb.  One  of  our  party,  a 
brilliant  English  girl,  asked  why  I  did  not  join  in  the  conver- 
sation, when  this  honest  and  truthful  answer  was  given : 
"When  these  two  great  electric  lights  are  shining,  I  simply 
represent  an  old-time  dip  candle  and  know  it ;  then  nothing  so 
much  becomes  me  as  profound  silence."  Thompson  crossed 
the  great  divide  in  1904  and  Howard  spent  an  hour  with  me 
only  a  few  weeks  ago. 

Fred  Howard  is  generally  a  dignified  and  silent  gentle- 
man and  doesn't  often  break  out  in  verse,  but  when  the  occa- 
sion demands  it  he  can,  as  this  incident  will  show.  One  Christ- 
mas eve,  about  a  dozen  years  ago,  on  the  summit  of  a  snow- 


344  RECOLLECTIONS 

capped  mountain  down  in  Mexico,  he  chanced  to  meet  a  kin- 
dred spirit;  and  it  further  happened  that  each  was  traveling, 
like  a  gentleman  should,  with  a  number  of  native  guides,  and 
pack-mules  loaded  with  all  kinds  of  good  things.  Neither  had 
ever  seen  or  even  heard  of  the  other  until  that  chance  meeting, 
but  by  a  sort  of  Freemasonry,  known  only  to  good  men  and 
true,  each  at  once  recognized  the  fact  that  he  stood  face  to  face 
with  a  master.  So  a  great  kettle  was  produced  and  into  this, 
by  mutual  agreement,  each  poured  out  all  his  treasures  in  the 
eatable  and  drinkable  line,  and  brewed  a  drink  which  they  then 
and  there  christened  "The  Lotus  Punch."  No  other  English- 
speaking  guest  was  there;  the  two  were  alone  on  that  Christ- 
mas eve  with  God  and  the  mountains  and  the  punch.  Maybe 
they  unanimously  adopted  the  time-honored  Scotch  rule — "The 
best  man  is  the  last  man  under  the  table" ;  or  maybe  they  knew 
when  and  how  each  finally  rolled  up. in  his  blankets;  but  no 
one  ever  inquired.  As  the  next  Yuletide  was  approaching  the 
genial  friend  of  the  mountain-top  wrote  and  urged  Howard  to 
again  meet  him  in  1898  at  Dallas,  Texas,  and  in  his  letter 
promised  an  ample  supply  of  their  famous  punch  ;  but  business 
at  home  detained  my  friend,  and  instead  of  his  personal  pres- 
ence, with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  a  vast  thirst  in  his  throat, 
Howard  answered  that  invitation  in  the  following  lines : 

"THE  LOTUS   PUNCH. 

"We  christened  our  punch  'The  Lotus'; 

Of  drinks  it 's  the  most  sublime 
Ere  brewed  for  those  happy  mortals 
Who  dwell  in  a  frigid  clime. 

"One  draught  makes  a  childish  bauble 

Of  the  miser's  hoard°d  gain, 
And  draws  from  the  love  of  woman 
Its  bitter  and  sleepless  pain. 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILB  345 


"In  the  incense  of  this  nectar 

Your  neighbor  becomes  a  friend, 
And  your  friend  is  made  a  brother 
Ere  the  glasses  back  we  send. 

"Then  oh,  for  a  night  eternal, 

In  the  land  where  snows  abound  ; 
A  cauldron  of  steaming  'Lotus,' 

With  bottom  which  can't  be  found." 

EDGAR  WATSON  HOWE,  Atchison,  Kansas.  Everybody 
knows  that  Ed  Howe  owns  and  edits  the  Globe  up  the  Mis- 
souri River  at  Atchison,  and  that  lie  has  also  written  books 
that  are  read  and  known  on  both  sides  of  the  big  water; 
but  as  only  a  few  know  his  antecedents,  1  '11  talk  about  his 
earlier  years. 

In  March,  1893,  wife  and  I  visited  our  old  home  town 
of  Gallatin,  and  among  many  good  things  said  about  us.  their 
local  paper  then  printed  the  following  concerning  Howe: 

"McDouGAL  ON  HOWE. 

"Twenty-six  years  ago,  when  I,  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land,  was  wrestling  with  the  mysteries  of  Blackstone  here  at 
Gallatin,  a  rosy-faced,  good  natured  printer-boy  struck  the 
town  and  went  to  setting  type  in  the  North  Missourian  office, 
then  owned  and  edited  by  Kost  &  Day.  We  took  our  meals 
at  Mrs.  Emmons'  boarding-house,  along  with  Homer  Sankey, 
the  saddler,  Captain  Barnum,  the  jeweler,  John  Williams,  the 
druggist,  and  transients.  The  printer-boy  heard  everything, 
said  little,  was  full  of  quiet,  quaint  humor,  and  had  sense, 
and  I  became  very  fond  of  him.  So,  after  he  drifted  away 
from  here,  I  kept  track  of  him,  but  did  not  appreciate  his  well- 
earned  fame  until  I  read  his  'Story  of  a  Country  Town'  only 
a  few  years  ago.  That  settled  it,  for  the  'Twin  Mounds'  of 
that  book  is  Bethany,  the  county  seat  next  north  of  us,  and 
Howe's  .old  home.  From  these  towns,  Bethany  and  Gallatin, 
and  the  surrounding  country,  Howe's  characters  were  taken. 
and  as  I  lived  tore  and  attended  courts  for  years  at  Bethany. 


346  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  found  by  reading  the  book  that  I  enjoyed  the  personal  ac- 
quaintance of  a  number  of  them,  notably  Joe  Erring,  Martin, 
the  newspaper  foreman,  Big  Adam,  and  The  Meek ;  and  no  old 
citizen  of  Gallatin  can  read  the  book  without  recognizing  at 
once  John  Williams  as  the  'nervous  little  druggist,'  old  man 
Jacobs  as  the  'big,  fat  blacksmith,'  and  Harfield  Davis'  drug- 
store- as  'the  place  where  all  questions,  political,  religious,  and 
social,  were  discussed  and  settled,'  although  Howe  does  not 
directly  name  either. 

"A  stranger  then  met  in  this  country  many  men  and 
women  of  strength  and  courage  and  brains,  yet  the  remote 
rural  districts,  especially  in  the  timber,  were  filled  with  thrift- 
less men  and  with  pale,  sad-eyed,  care-worn,  helpless,  and 
hopeless  women,  whose  sole  object  in  life  seemed  to  be  to  go 
to  church  and  circus  and  to  rear  children — all  of  which  they 
seemed  to  do  in  a  listless,  melancholy  sort  of  way.  With 
the  hand  of  a  master,  Howe  sketched  the  country  and  the  peo- 
ple as  he  and  I  knew  them  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  His 
pictures  are  at  once  strong,  dramatic,  pathetic,  and  humorous, 
and,  what  is  better,  human  and  true.  To  me  the  book  was  what 
some  critic  characterized  as  'horribly  fascinating,'  and  all  the 
more  so  because,  to  my  personal  knowledge,  the  picture  was 
in  truth  what  art  critics  call  'a  speaking  likeness,'  and  I  knew 
that  the  artist  must  be,  as  he  in  fact  is,  near  the  mountain-top 
of  fame." 

Ed  Howe  had  a  brother  James,  another  bright  news- 
paper man,  who  ran  a  paper  at  Carlsbad  in  New  Mexico. 
Only  a  few  years  after  our  Gallatin  visit,  and  in  1895,  a 
friend  wired  ms  one  Saturday  that  this  Mrs.  Emmons  and 
her  only  sister  had  suddenly  died  within  the  same  day  at  Gal- 
latin, would  be  interred  in  the  same  grave  on  Sunday,  and 
asked  me  to  attend  the  funeral.  An  imperative  business  en- 
gagement prevented  going;  but  in  my  office  here  on  that 
Sunday  morning  I  wrote  a  short  history  of  the  two  sisters, 
alluded  to  their  kindness  in  the  old  days,  and  mentioned  the 
fact  that  James  and  Ed  Howe,  Sankey,  Barnum,  and  Will- 
iams had  boarded  with  them  when  I  did  early  in  1867,  and 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  347 

mailed  this  tribute  to  the  Gallatin  papers.  Upon  my  return 
home  a  week  later,  these  strange  coincidences  revealed  them- 
selves :  Gallatin  and  Atchison  papers  were  on  my  desk.  In 
parallel  columns  of  the  former  appeared  my  own  tribute  to 
the  two  sisters,  and  their  funeral  sermon,  preached  by  their 
pastor  and  my  old  friend,  Rev.  T.  M.  S.  Kinney.  The  one 
was  written  here  and  the  other  delivered  at  the  same  hour 
seventy-five  miles  away,  and  yet  from  the  Word  both  he  and 
I  had  applied  the  same  sentiment :  "They  were  lovely  and 
pleasant  in  their  lives,  and  in  their  death  they  were  not  di- 
vided." In  the  Globe  which  Ed  had  mailed  me,  the  first 
thing  I  saw  was  the  picture  of  his  brother  James,  and  next 
Ed's  tribute  to  Jim.  From  these  I  learned  that  James  Howe 
had  suddenly  died  at  Carlsbad  on  the  same  day  these  two 
sisters,  from  their  Gallatin  home,  had  joined  the  great,  si- 
lent majority.  And  Ed,  too,  had  referred  to  the  old  days, 
in  substance  covering  the  same  ground  traversed  by  preach- 
er Kinney  and  myself. 

EGBERT  HUBBARD,  East  Aurora,  New  York.  The 
name  and  address  of  this  editor  of  The  Philistine,  lecturer, 
talker,  writer,  thinker,  is  written;  but  right  here  a  pause 
comes,  for  sj  much  has  been  said  in  print  about  Fra  Elbert- 
us  that  his  case  presents  a  serious  problem.  In  some  re- 
spects to  me  he  seems  like  another  distinguished  American 
who  is  just  now  shooting  elephants,  lions,  and  other  fero- 
cious wild  beasts  over  in  Africa,  for  he  has  said  and  done  and 
written  so  much  that  necessarily  he  has  sometimes  been 
wrong,  although  generally  right. 

He  was  born  and  reared  on  a  farm  over  in  Illinois  and 
the  sweet  smell  of  the  soil  of  his  native  prairies  may  still  be 
detected  in  much  of  his  writing.  Since  early  manhood,  and 


348  RECOLLECTIONS 

that  is  not  very  far  back  either,  he  has  been  a  cow-puncher, 
traveler,  student,  writer,  and  indeed  everything  else  that 
could  be  expected  in  a  man  of  big  brain  and  red  blood,  except 
that  no  crime  or  misdemeanor,  like  missing  mass,  or  murder, 
has  been  laid  to  his  door;  nor  has  he  been  charged  with  suck- 
ing eggs  or  wearing  side-whiskers.  If  he  should  be  brought 
into  court  charged  with  either,  however,  and  retained  me,  be- 
ing still  something  of  a  fighter,  I  should  advise  him  to  deny 
everything,  demand  the  proof,  and  go  into  trial. 

In  passing  through  this  vale  of  tears,  one  of  the  most 
amusing  scenes  is  the  object-lesson  offered  by  men  and  wo- 
men, too  old  to  sin,  taking  up  the  role  of  the  reformer.  Con- 
spicuous successes  in  this  line  are  rare,  were  never  numer- 
ous, and  reformers  generally  lose  their  lives  in  the  effort.  If 
the  sole  object  be  to  "lay  up  treasures  in  heaven,"  then  they 
may  be  forgiven  ;  but  when  after  earthly  glory,  the  contempt 
or  pity  of  their  fellows  is  won;  they  make  ample  sport  for 
others,  and,  not  unlike  the  man  who  dyes  his  whiskers,  fool 
nobody  but  themselves.  So,  it  is  rarely  safe  to  name  a  baby 
for  the  living,  for  it 's  hard  to  say  how  one  will  turn  out ;  but 
in  the  case  of  Elbertus  it 's  different,  for  that  name  may  now 
be  bestowed  with  the  utmost  impunity — he  is  neither  a  re- 
former of  the  world,  nor  does  he  ever  assume  the  stupidity 
of  silence  or  the  dignity  of  dullness,  but  continues  to  write, 
say,  and  do  things  and  make  good. 

Ever  since  he  founded  his  publication,  I  have  read  all 
his  printed  stuff,  including  his  "Little  Journeys,"  and  like  to 
follow  him,  regardless  of  the  question  of  the  right  or  wrong 
involved,  for  he  never  fails  to  instruct  and  make  me  think. 
In  all  these  years,  too,  we  have  kept  up  a  sort  of  bushwhack- 
ing correspondence  and  it  has  done  me  no  little  good  to  help 
the  cause  along.  Years  ago,  a  committee  waited  upon  me 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  349 

an  1  asked  that  I  introduce  some  Christian  Science  lecturer. 
Being  a  fre«  lance,  I  accepted,  prepared  my  introduction  with 
th.?  view  of  making  the  gentleman  hump  himself  to  hold  the 
attention  of  his  audience  after  I  got  through,  but  was  called 
out  of  the  city,  and  that  speech  was  never  delivered.  A  few 
months  kter  some  lawyer  friends  were  in  my  office  one  hol- 
iday, discussing  this  very  question,  an.l  aske:l  what  I  thought 
of  that  faith.  I  replied.  "Nothing,''  but  told  them  I  had  pro- 
nounced views  as  to  the  rights  of  those  people  under  the  Con- 
'titution  and  laws  of  our  country,  and  briefly  gave  them  the 
history  of  my  intended  talk.  At  the  suggestion  of  one  of  my 
guests,  that  speech  was  then  duly  roared  to  them  in  mock 
heroics,  and  the  question  was  at  once  asked,  "Where  is  your 
manuscript  ?"  My  answer  was  that  no  word  or  line  of  that 
speech  was  ever  on  paper ;  when  one  said :  "Do  not  fail  to 
dictate  that  talk  to  your  stenographer  to-morrow,  for  "you 
never  said  anything  better."  And  to  please  them,  I  did  so. 
Then  I  noticed  in  The  Philistine  that  Hubbard  had  written 
along  the  same  lines,  and  mailed^  him  a  copy  of  my  talk,  telling 
him  to  run  his  eye  over  it,  convince  himself  that  the  minds  of 
great  men  sometimes  still  flocked  together,  and  then  return  it. 
In  reply  he  wrote:  "I  will  not  return,  but  will  keep  and 
print  what  you  might  have  said  for  the  benefit  cf  Philisti  i 
some  fine  day,  for  your  stuff  is  the  best  American  production 
since  that  Gettysburg  speech."  Of  course.  Elbertus  lied  like 
a  tombstone  about  that,  and  maybe  ought  to  take  the  Keeley 
cure  for  prevarichitis,  for  no  other  human  effort  should  be 
mentioned  in  the  sam?  hour  with  Lincoln's  great  speech ;  but 
he  knew  how  to  reach  my  heart  and  flatter  my  vanity,  and  I 
didn't  raise  a  row  about  it.  So  in  the  June.  1900.  number  of 
The  Philistine  came  out  the  speech  T  never  made  under  tin- 
heading  of  "In  re  Christian  Science."  From  his  paper,  this 


350  RECOLLECTIONS 

thing  was  copied  in  many  papers  and  magazines  in  both  Eu- 
rope and  America  and  a  lot  of  credit  came  to  me,  and  all  on 
account  of  my  good  intentions.  While  attending  the  Pan- 
American  Exposition  up  at  Buffalo  in  1901,  I  arranged  to  run 
down  to  his  nearby  home  and  spend  a  day  with  Hubbard  at 
East  Aurora,  but  some  way  missed  it  and  always  happened  to 
be  out  of  town  when  he  was  here.  So  I  never  got  to  lay  eyes 
on  him  until  about  a  year  ago,  when  I  saw  by  the  papers  that 
he  was  again  in  this  city.  My  neighboring,  bald,  but  level- 
headed lawyer  friend,  Thomas  Adams  Witten,  had  also  corre- 
sponded with  and  for  The  Philistine,  and  I  got  hold  of  him, 
and  together  we  went  to  Hubbard's  hotel  to  pay  our  respects. 
From  his  pictures  I  recognized  him  at  once  in  the  lobby  and 
introduced  myself.  With  his  characteristic  drawl,  he  greet- 
ed me  warmly,  and  said,  "I  'm  mighty  glad  to  see  you."  Then 
I  presented  my  friend  as  "Major  Witten,"  and  Elbertus  said, 
"Why,  hello,  Tom !  how  are  you  ?" 

DAVID  J.  M.  A.  JEWETT,  Lincoln  County,  New  Mexico. 
Born  in  New  England,  educated  in  England ;  a  British  officer 
through  the  Crimean  War;  a  business  man  in  Charleston, 
South  Carolina ;  a  Federal  staff  officer  in  the  Civil  War ;  a 
civil  engineer,  lawyer,  and  politician  at  New  Orleans  and  there 
served  as  the  National  Committeeman  of  his  party,  as  well  as 
at  the  head  of  the  Republican  State  Committee  of  Louisiana ;  a 
resident  of  Lincoln  County,  New  Mexico,  for  over  thirty  years  ; 
a  traveler,  linguist,  student,  musician,  writer,  thinker,  and 
speaker — such  in  brief  is  the  life  story  of  Colonel  Jewett. 

In  the  gulches  and  mountain  passes  adjacent  to  what  is 
now  White  Oaks,  in  Lincoln  County,  New  Mexico,  rich  and 
abundant  placer  gold  was  originally  discovered  in  1879. 
Among  the  many  who  there  joined  in  the  wild  stampede  to  this 
historic  and  beautiful  country  were  Colonel  Jewett,  my  brother 


A  FEW  OTHERS   WORTH  WHILE  351 

Luther  E.  McDougal,  John  Young  Hewitt,  Dr.  Edward  Mor- 
ley,  and  others.  These  men  were  at  the  forefront  in  establish- 
ing White  Oaks,  wisely  and  appropriately  called  "Heart's  De- 
sire" in  the  novel  of  Emerson  Hough  in  later  years.  The 
typical  bad  man,  the  adventurer,  and  the  gambler  always  flock- 
to  a  new  and  prosperous  mining  camp,  and,  as  usual,  they  came 
in  and  attempted  to  run  White  Oaks.  Then  by  common  con- 
sent the  better  element,  known  as  "law  and  order  men,"  organ- 
ized a  vigilance  committee,  Colonel  Jewett  was  made  their 
commander,  and  the  near-peace  of  the  frontier  has  ever  since 
reigned  throughout  the  country. 

When  I  first  met  this  remarkable  character  in  1881,  he 
was  located  at  White  Oaks  as  a  surveyor,  lawyer,  leader  of 
men,  thought,  and  action.  His  vast  knowledge  of  countries, 
places,  and  people;  his  command  of  languages;  his  powers  of 
conversation,  speaking,  and  writing;  his  capacity  for  grasping 
and  mastering  any  subject  or  situation ;  his  ability  to  meet  on 
an  equal  footing  and  talk  with  all  of  the  many  classes  one  there 
ccmes  in  contact  with,  not  less  than  knowing  exactly  just  when 
and  what  and  how  to  eat  and  drink  everything — then  filled  me 
with  admiration.  Cheek  by  jowl,  he  had  been  with  and  known 
the  great  men  and  women  of  the  wide  world.  At  the  head  of 
his  party  in  the  South,  I  always  suspected  that  he  planned  and 
executed  the  political  destinies  of  his  adopted  State  of  Louisi- 
ana in  the  historic  fight  which  resulted  in  the  Electoral  Com- 
mission of  early  1877 ;  but  never  knew — and,  in  fact,  did  not 
want  to  know,  for  I  had  my  own  opinion  about  it  all.  Any- 
way, the  result  of  that  conflict  probably  cause;!  him  to  abandon 
the  South,  the  East,  and  the  other  parts  of  the  world,  and  t«» 
locate  in  New  Mexico. 

In  1892  I  was  again  in  that  country  and  visited  Colonel 
Jewett  at  his  then  home  in  the  town  of  Lincoln.  In  his  front 
room  was  his  law  office,  the  middle  room  was  filled  with  books 


352  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  musical  instruments — and  he  was  master  of  them  all — 
while  back  of  these  was  a  third,  which  was  at  once  his  kitchen 
and  dining-room.  Thus  surrounded,  if  the  Colonel  was  not 
the  happiest  and  best  satisfied  man  in  the  Territory,  no  one 
ever  knew  it.  His  town  was  then  the  seat  of  justice  of  Lincoln 
County,  was  145  miles  from  the  nearest  railway,  there  was  not 
a  stone,  brick,  or  wooden  building  in  the  village,  and  each  adobe 
house  boasted  the  record  of  blood,,  for  in  the  days  of  their  Lin- 
coln County  War,  from  '78  to  '81,  this  was  the  headquarters  of 
the  notorious  young  outlaw  "Billy  the  Kid"  and  of  courageous 
Pat  Garrett,  and  a  clash  between  their  forces  always  spelled 
loss  of  human  life.  For  days  there  I  was  charmed  and  edified 
by  the  talks  of  Colonel  Jewett,  my  traveling  comrade,  Fred 
Howard,  and  two  other  gentlemen.  Each  of  the  four  had 
traveled  throughout  the  world,  each  knew  how  to  talk,  and 
each  had  forgotten  more  than  the  average  human  being  even 
dreams  of  knowing. 

In  February,  1894,  I  was  engaged  in  the  trial  of  two  con- 
tested mining  cases  at  Roswell,  New  Mexico.  My  frontier 
and  Mexican  witnesses  had  all  come  in,  and  both  sides  had 
announced  "Ready."  Then  I  heard  that,  clad  in  leather  and 
furs  like  a  Russian  peasant,  Colonel  Jewett,  without  request 
or  subpoena,  and  simply  because  he  knew  we  needed  him,  had 
ridden  across  mountain  and  desert,  through  snows  and  cold, 
from  h:s  home  at  Lincoln,  sixty-five  miles  away,  to  testify  in 
that  case  for  my  clients,  and  was  even  then  down  at  the  Mex- 
ican corral  among  my  witnesses.  I  knew  he  talked  and  under- 
stood Spanish  like  a  native,  and  as  he  had  been  the  attorney  in 
1 88 1  for  my  people  over  in  his  county  where  the  mines  were, 
was  familiar  with  every  question  of  law  and  fact  involved ;  but, 
with  his  usual  composure,  he  left  that  corral,  accepted  my  in- 
vitation, and  came  to  my  rooms  at  the  hotel.  Our  visit  and 
the  friendly  "round-up"  were  most  enjoyable.  His  thorough 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  353 

knowledge  of  both  Spanish  and  mining  law,  the  language  of 
our  Mexican  witnesses,  practice  in  their  courts,  etc.,  were  all 
of  great  value  to  me  and  ultimately  enabled  our  side  to  win 
both  cases.  Scholars  and  travelers  have  told  me  that  the  Colo- 
nel understood  and  spoke  with  unusual  fluency  seven  living 
and  all  the  dead  languages,  and  many  Oriental  tongues  as  well. 
One  of  the  proofs  that  he  kept  abreast  with  current  literature 
of  the  law  was  furnished  in  the  fact  that  in  all  the  years  I 
knew  him,  I  sometimes  had  a  word  to  say  in  law  magazines  on 
some  live  legal  subject,  and  not  once  did  the  Colonel  fail  to 
read  these  articles  and  then  write  me  a  congratulatory  letter 
on  the  subject. 

Last  year  (1908)  friends  drove  daughter  Florence  and  me 
over  from  White  Oaks  to  Capitan  (thirty  miles),  and  we  there 
had  a  last  visit  with  my  old  friend.  His  hair  and  moustache 
were  then  as  brown  and  abundant  as  in  the  long  ago,  while  his ' 
deep,  rich,  powerful,  and  sonorous  voice  was  as  strong,  cleat, 
and  musical  as  that  of  a  boy.  But  a  letter  received  to-day 
(November  20,  1909)  from  our  mutual  friend  Judge  Hewitt, 
of  White  Oaks,  brings  me  these  sad  lines :  "Our  old  soldier 
friend,  Colonel  David  J.  M.  A.  Jewett,  died  on  the  i6th  inst, 
and  was  buried  at  Capitan  on  yesterday.  Thus  one  by  one  the 
former  residents  of  'Heart's  Desire'  disappear.  Poor  Jewett! 
while  he,  like  the  rest  of  us,  had  his  faults ;  yet  many  virtue* 
and  gocd  traits  were  to  his  credit." 

With  Colonel  Jewett  from  Louisiana  to  New  Mexico  many 
years  ago  went  William  F.  Blanchard.  They  were  close  per- 
sonal and  political  friends;  but  at  last  came  to  the  parting  of 
the  ways,  which  was  unknown  to  me.  One  day,  down  in  that 
country,  I  was  asking  Blanchard  about  the  Colonel,  whom  I 
had  not  seen  on  that  trip,  and  in  the  conversation  incidentally 
mentioned  the  fact  of  Jewett's  long  life,  wide  learning,  travels, 
etc.,  when  his  old-time  compadre  worked  off  on  me  this  re- 


354  RECOLLECTIONS 

sponse,  which  I  then  erroneously  thought  original :  "Yes,  as 
you  say,  the  Colonel  knows  a  whole  lot,  and  the  only  trouble 
with  him  is,  he  knows  so  damned  much  that  ain't  so." 

JOSEPH,  Chief  of  the  Nez  Perces  Indians.  In  my  long 
residence  in  the  Middle  West,  I  have  met  and  known  many 
members  of  various  tribes  of  Indians,  some  of  whom  are  not 
unknown  to  the  American  reader.  The  most  notable  of  these 
were  Geronimo,  Chief  of  the  Apaches;  Quanah  Parker,  Chiet 
of  the  Comanches;  Wah-jep-pa,  of  the  Omahas ;  Oh-lo-hah- 
wah-la,  of  the  Osages ;  and  Chief  Joseph.  Through  an  inter- 
preter I  have  often  talked  with  many  Indians ;  but  by  far  the 
most  interesting  of  the  "noble  red  men  of  the  forest"  whom 
I  have  met  was  this  Chief  Joseph. 

While  he  and  his  tribe  were  held  as  prisoners  of  war  on 
the  Government  reservation  at  Fort  Leavenworth  in  1877,  I 
visited  these  captives,  and  through  an  interpreter  then  had  a 
long  "council"  with  Joseph.  The  songs,  chants,  religious  cere- 
monies, dances,  and  other  warlike  demonstrations  of  this  tribe 
were  of  but  little  interest,  but  not  so  with  the  talks  of  this  chiei. 
Although  he  could  not  then  speak,  read,  or  write  the  English, 
and  presumably  could  only  speak  in  his  native  tongue,  yet 
Joseph's  terse,  forceful  sentences,  wise  words,  natural  com- 
mon sense,  ready  yet  unaffected,  graceful,  and  impressive  man- 
ner and  gestures,  and  earnest  dignity  of  expression,  especially 
when  speaking  of  the  wrongs  of  his  people  at  the  hands  of 
the  whites,  marked  him  as  one  of  the  earth's  great  men,  and 
then  made  and  left  with  me  the  firm  conviction  that  he  was  a 
rnoct  perfect  example  of  Nature's  nobility.  Scholarship,  ex- 
tensive reading,  hard  study,  and  culture,  in  time  bring  a  few 
wh-'les  up  to  the  untutored,  natural-man  standard  of  the  old 
Indian,  but  examples  of  this  are  rare  to-day.  Vanity  veils 
from  proud  whites  the  traditional  lore  and  native  dignity  of 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  ;J5o 

the  red  man;  civilization  might  learn  much  from  the  Indian, 
but  does  not  know  it.     Indians  think;  whites  consult  books. 

ELIZABETH  BRYANT  JOHNSTON,  Washington,  D.  C.,  was 
a  native  of  Germantown,  Kentucky,  but  after  the  Civil  War, 
made  her  home  at  the  nation's  capital.  My  two  friends, 
Judge  Sanders  W.  and  Anderson  Doniphan  Johnston,  of 
that  city,  were  her  only  brothers ;  while  the  gloriously  gif te  1 
Marie  Decca  and  Frances  B.njamin  Johnsto.i  were  her  nieces. 
Much  of  her  eventful  life  was  spent  in  American  and  Euro- 
pean travel  and  she  became  one  of  the  most  interesting,  en- 
tertaining, and  instructive  writers  and  talkers  I  have  known. 

About  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  she  published  her  great- 
est book,  entitled  "The  Original  Portraits  of  George  Wash- 
ington." Until  this  book  came  out,  I  did  not  know  that  "the 
Father  of  his  Country"  was  so  vain  as  to  sit  for  fifty-six  of 
his  portraits;  but  he  did.  Many  of  these  are  not  recognized 
now,  for  they  were  painted  from  his  youth  to  his  old  age. 
The  accepted  picture  of  this  great  human  character,  and  the 
one  we  all  know,  is  called  by  artists  "the  unfinished  por- 
trait by  Gilbert  Stuart."  Under  his  written  contract,  Stuart 
was  to  be  paid  so  much  for  this  portrait  when  it  was  "fin- 
ished." The  head  and  face  were  done,  but  that  part  of  the 
body  below  the  neck  was  not  painted,  when  Stuart  became 
satisfied  that  his  work  would  be  received  as  the  greatest  and 
best  picture  of  our  George.  Hence,  with  an  artist's  pride, 
he  refused  to  part  with  or  "finish"  it,  and  so  that  portrait 
remains  to  this  day. 

Two  of  Miss  Johnston's  other  books  are  distinctly  South- 
ern and  portray  life  down  in  Dixie  as  it  was  away  back  in 
slavery  days.  No  one  born  and  reared  among  the  slaves  of 
the  border  States  as  I  was,  and  who  still  has  in  his  veins 


356  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  rich  red  blood  of  earlier  years,  can  to-day  read  with  dry 
eyes  her  stories  called  "Christmas  in  Kentucky  in  1862"  and 
"The  Days  That  Are  No  More."  Among  her  numberless 
magazine  and  newspaper  articles  was  a  sketch  which  I  have 
never  seen  in  print — "The  Story  of  Virginia  Dare."  From 
tradition,  legend,  and  history  she  extracted  and  prepared  for 
the  press  this  exceedingly  interesting  story:  Virginia  Dare 
was  the  first  white  child  born  in  the  Colony  of  Virginia  at 
Jamestown.  When  about  grown  to  womanhood,  she  and 
ninety-seven  other  colonists  started  from  Jamestown  to  ex- 
rlore  the  wilderness  to  the  west  of  that  settlement;  but  their 
happy  good-bye  was  the  last  ever  seen  of  any  one  of  the  party. 
At  a  recent  date,  however,  in  the  remote  fastnesses  of  the 
North  Carolina  mountains  and  among  a  remnant  of  some 
tribe  of  mixed-blood  Indians  there  found,  were  discovered 
the  supposed  surviving  descendants  of  the  Virginia  Dare  ex- 
plorers, for  forty-eight  of  their  families  still  cling  to  the  an- 
cestral names  of  that  party  and  possess  blue  or  gray  eyes  and 
light  hair. 

No  one  achievement  of  this  noble  woman  was  of  great- 
er public  concern  than  the  organization  of  the  "Literary  So 
ciety  of  Washington,"  soon  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War. 
Together  with  her  brother,  Judge  Johnston,  Ainsworth  R. 
Spofford,  Airs.  Fred  Lander,  George  Bancroft,  W.  W.  Cor- 
coran, and  others,  she  there  started  this  Society.  Its  mem- 
bership was  limited  to  100  persons,  and  among  its  presidents 
were  such  men  of  national  repute  as  James  A.  Garfield  and 
Charles  D.  Drake,  while  its  membership  included  such  wom- 
en as  Kate  Field,  Mrs.  Dahlgreen,  Olive  Logan,  and  Mrs. 
C.  Adele  Fassett.  They  were  the  brightest,  brainiest,  most 
learned  lot  of  men  and  women  of  earth,  and  nothing  of  pub- 
lic interest  ever  escaped  them.  In  short,  it  was  a  genial  ar- 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  357 

istocracy  of  brains,  where  clolhes  didn't  count;  and  a  night 
amid  the  boundless  fields,  green  grasses,  and  limpid  intellect- 
ual waters  of  that  Society  was  always  worth  a  year  among 
the  herd. 

Along  in  the  late  '705  and  in  the  '8os,  I  often  accom- 
panied Miss  Johnston  to  these  meetings  of  her  beloved  So- 
ciety, and  was  present  with  her  one  night  when  she  read  a 
paper  on  the  Federal  Constitution,  once  characterized  by 
great  Gladstone  as  "the  most  wonderful  instrument  ever 
struck  off  at  a  given  time  by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man." 
In  her  paper  Miss  Johnston  took  occasion  to  explain  why 
and  how  it  was  that  the  four  years  of  a  presidential  term 
happened  to  begin  on  March  4.  That  day  was  not  originally 
fixed  by  either  Constitution  or  law;  but  a  resolution  of  1788 
simply  and  only  provided  that  on  the  first  Wednesday  of 
March  fo'lowing  its  ratification,  this  Government  should  com- 
mence its  proceedings  under  the  Constitution,  and  as  that  first 
Wednesday  in  March  happened  to  fall  on  March  4,  1789, 
that  day  was  thus  fixed  as  the  day  for  the  commencement  of 
the  presidential  term.  Air.ong  the  many  then  present  was 
the  venerable  George  Bancroft,  who  sat  there  stroking  his 
snow-white  whiskers,  and  profoundly  interested.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  Miss  Johnston's  statement,  I  can  never  forget  how 
the  great  historian  said:  "What's  that,  what's  that,  Miss 
Lizzie?  Read  that  statement  again,  please."  With  a  smile, 
she  re-read  her  explanation,  when  the  old  man  said:  "Well, 
you  are  no  doubt  right,  but  you  state  an  historic  fact  that  es- 
caped me." 

One  morning  in  1897,  Aunt  Lizzie  and  myself,  with  a 
party  oi  friends,  started  by  trolley  to  go  from  Washington 
up  to  Cabin  John  Bridge  for  an  old-time  Maryland  dinnet. 
While  waiting  to  change  cars  at  Georgetown,  we  were  look 


358  RECOLLECTIONS 

ing  down  on  the  street  below  at  the  "Old  Key  Mansion"  and 
discussing  the  time  when  in  that  historic  house  Francis  Scott 
Key  put  the  finishing  touches  on  his  immortal  "Star-Span- 
gled Banner,"  when  she  pointed  out  an  old,  thin,  spare,  shriv- 
eled woman  at  the  second-story  window  of  a  little  woocb'i 
cottage  that  stood  just  by  us,  and  asked:  "Have  you  ever 
met  that  woman,  or  do  you  know  who  she  is?"  Upon  m> 
answering  in  the  negative,  she  told  me  that  this  was  Mrs.  E. 
D.  E.  N.  Southworth,  the  great  novel-writer  of  half  a  century 
before.  Mrs.  Southworth  must  have  been  in  her  dotage  then, 
for  her  fad  was  to  never  wear  stockings  that  matched  in  col- 
or, while;  she  still  read  all  the  daily  papers  and  raised  the 
dickens  in  every  language  at  her  command  with  "the  butch 
er  and  baker  and  candlestick-maker"  at  the  market-places 
While  still  talking  about  the  famous  author  of  these  long-ago 
novels,  along  came  our  other  old  friend,  Clara  Barton,  pres- 
ident of  the  Red  Cross  Society  of  the  World.  In  the  im- 
promptu reunion  then  held  with  these  distinguished  travel- 
ers and  scholars,  maybe  I  should  have  recalled  my  early  dis- 
advantages, but  the  honor  and  dignity  of  old  Missouri,  not 
less  than  the  duties  of  host,  rested  on  my  shoulders,  and  as 
we  all  boarded  the  cars  for  the  famous  Potomac  resort,  the 
far  West  was  not  wholly  without  its  representative. 

The  last  time  I  met  Elizabeth  Bryant  Johnston  was  in 
January,  1907.  I  reached  Washington  one  night  and  on  the 
following  morning  she  called  to  see  me.  She  was  then  past 
seventy-four  and  had  been  my  friend  ever  since  I  was  a  boy. 
Her  talk  was  as  bright  as  ever,  but  to  me  there  was  an  ex- 
pression of  her  face  that  was  new  and  I  feared  the  emd  was 
not  very  far  away.  However,  she  and  her  friends  dined  with 
me  that  evening  and  I  took  her  home.  Once  in  the  parlor, 
where  I  had  so  often  been  entertained,  at  her  request  I  went 


A   FEW   OTHERS  WORTH   Wiur.i:  369 

to  her  room  to  light  the  gas— "I  cannot  afford  to  run  .the  risk 
of  being  frightened,"  she  said.  Then  she  called  upstairs  to 
me :  "Henry,  in  my  library  you  '11  find  Bartlett's  'Quota- 
tions'; remove  that  book  and  the  one  next  on  the  right,  and 
bring  me  that  which  you  find  there."  I  did  so;  it  was  a  pint 
of  whisky!  Taking  this  down  and  handing  it  to  her,  she 
asked  me  to  bring  two  glasses;  I  did  so,  but  said:  "You 
must  drink  alone,  Aunt  Lizzie,  for  I  am  on  the  water- wago  i 
now."  "Not  with  me,  Henry;  not  with  me,"  she  answered. 
So  I  filleti  her  glass  and  put  a  very  small  drink  in  mine;  but 
she  protested,  "That  is  not  a  drink  for  a  Southern  gentleman ; 
fill  your  glass,  for  we  must  take  one  more  nip  of  good  old 
Bourbon  together."  So  we  did;  I  bade  her  good-night  and 
returned  to  my  apartments.  Early  on  the  following  Sunday 
morning  her  trained  nurse  called  and  said,  "Miss  Johnsto  i 
has  just  died !"  Her  sudden  death  was  a  great  shock  to  me, 
and  especially  so  as  she  was  the  fifth  of  my  Washington 
tried,  true,  war-time  friends  to  pass  away  within  the  past 
two  years :  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Lewis  Cass  Forsyth,  the  Judge 
and  A.  D.  Johnston,  and  now  Aunt  Lizzie.  A  few  days  later 
I  there  attended  her  funeral  as  one  of  the  honorary  pall- 
bearers of  my  life-long  friend,  and  was  again  surprised  to 
note  this  additional  evidence  of  the  flight  of  time:  Out  of 
the  scores  who  attended  that  funeral,  the  old  librarian,  Ains- 
worth  R.  Spofford,  and  I  were  the  only  survivors  of  the  many 
who  nearly  forty  years  ago  used  often  to  meet  at  the  weekly 
gatherings  of  the  famous  Literary  Society,  and  since  then 
brother  Spofford  is  gone.  Next.? 

FRANCES  BENJAMIN  JOHNSTON,  Washington,  D.  C.  From 
the  time  she  was  a  baby  in  long  gowns  I  have  known  and  been 
proud  of  this  many-sided  and  rarely  endowed  woman.  No 


360  RECOLLECTIONS 

achievement  of  hers,  nothing  she  has  ever  done,  surprises  me, 
for  greatness  and  goodness  are  her  birthright.  Early  envi- 
ronment, education,  and  association  make  every  Virginian  a* 
firm  a  believer  in  blooded  people  as  in  blooded  stock.  On 
both  sides  of  her  house,  as  far  back  as  history  runs,  Miss 
Johnston's  people  were  of  gentle  blood,  yet  that  blood  inher- 
ited not  only  a  strong  strain  of  fight,  but  of  intelligent,  well- 
directed  effort  and  accomplishment.  Her  father,  the  late  A.  D 
Johnson,  was  my  chief  away  back  at  the  close  of  the  war; 
her  mother  has  been  and  is  my  friend;  as  are  many  other 
distinguished  members  of  the  Clan  Johnston,  and  I  am  fond 
of  them. 

Miss  Johnston  spent  four  years  in  Europe,  mainly  Paris, 
learning  the  science  of  illustration  with  the  brush,  to  make 
clearer  to  the  masses  her  mother's  public  writings  and  her 
own.     Both  are  famous  as  magazine  and  newspaper  women. 
But  in  1889  our  eldest  daughter,  now  Mrs.  Mabel  Rudolph, 
accompanied  me  to  Washington  to  witness  the  inauguration  of 
President  Harrison,  and  we  were  the  guests  of  the  Johnstons. 
Their  mutual  pleadings  were  so  strong  that  I  finally  yielded, 
and  daughter  remained  East  for  a  year,  most  of  the  time  as 
the  guest  of  Miss  Johnston.     En  route  homeward  from  New 
York  that  summer,  I  visited  with  the  Johnstons  for  a  day  at 
Washington  and  then  went  on  over  into  Loudoun  County,  Vir- 
ginia, to  find  a  good  place  for  Fan  and  Mabel  and  myself  to 
rest  and  enjoy  one  good,  long  play  spell.    When  I  was  a  boy, 
the  Loudoun  Valley  was  as  quiet,  peaceful,  restful,  and  lovely 
as  the  Garden  of  Eden ;  but  I  found  the  whole  country  trans- 
formed into  a  summer  resort  by  1889,  while  Coney  Island  was 
about  as  quiet.    So,  after  some  days  of  fashionable  torture,  I 
returned  to  Washington  and  at  my  suggestion  these  two  girls 
first  spent  a  season  over  at  the  seaside  and  then  procured  a 
kodak  and  went  down  to  the  home  of  my  Virginia  ancestors. 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  361 

They  knew  I  was  especially  anxious  to  secure  kodak  picturer 
of  Ripon  Lodge,  in  Prince  William  County,  and  of  various 
historical  family  scenes  about  the  ancient  town  of  Dumfries; 
but  instead  of  this,  like  the  laughing,  careless  girls  they  were, 
Fan  and  Mabel  kodaked  every  "nigger  and  a  mule,"  and  every 
other  amusing  scene  they  came  across  on  their  trip,  and  one 
of  the  results  is  that  I  have  no  pictures  of  the  ancestral  homes 
so  much  desired.  Dumfries  was  the  Colonial  home  of  some  of 
our  people,  while  Ripon  Lodge  has  been  in  our  family  since 
1650. 

One  result,  however,  followed  this  expedition  down  into 
Virginia,  most  fortunately  for  Miss  Johnston.  Her  personal 
experiences  with  their  little  kodak  revealed  to  her  the  limit- 
less possibilities  of  the  camera;  she  at  once  commenced  the 
scientific  study  of  photography ;  soon  abandoned  the  pencil  and 
brush ;  perfected  herself  in  her  studies ;  opened  and  still  oper- 
ates one  of  the  most  complete  photographic  galleries  in  the 
world;  by  the  camera  now  illustrates  all  her  own  magazine 
and  scientific  articles  for  the  press ;  and  is  to-day  in  the  front 
rank  as  an  American  writer,  as  she  is  easily  our  foremost 
artist.  If  there  be  anything  to  be  achieved  with  pen  or  camera 
that  has  not  already  been  accomplished  by  this  gifted  woman, 
I  have  never  heard  of  it. 

EMMA  LEONUAS  KELLY  McCLELLAN,  Crary,  North  Da- 
kota. This  is  a  long  name,  but  the  subject  is  longer  and  big- 
ger in  all  ways.  For  many  years  her  father,  Henry  Bascom 
Kelly,  edited  and  owned  The  Freeman  at  and  was  a  State  sen- 
ator from  McPherson,  Kansas.  There  I  came  to  know  every 
member  of  the  family  well,  for  they  lived  next  door  to  my 
youngest  pister,  and  our  two  eldest  daughters  many  a  summer 
spent  their  vacation  with  their  aunt,  where  the  Senator's  two 
children,  Emma  and  Gilby,  were  their  daily  playmates. 


362  RECOLLECTIONS 

After  completing  her  education,  Emma  spent  some  years 
in  newspaper  work  on  the  Kansas  City  and  Chicago  dailies, 
and  in  the  summer  of  1897,  under  a  contract  with  a  Chicago 
syndicate,  made  her  first  trip  over  the  famous  Chilcoot  Pass, 
to  Dawson  on  the  Yukon  in  Alaska.  While  there  that  time, 
when  not  looking  after  the  vast  business  interests  entrusted 
to  her  care  by  the  investors  mentioned,  she  became  greatly 
interested  in  the  gold-fields  of  that  far-away  country,  and  was 
the  ready  correspondent  of  many  magazines  and  newspapers 
throughout  the  States.  Since  then  she  has  made  several  trips 
to  that  north  country  to  personally  superintend  her  many  in- 
terests in  the  gold  camps  of  that  region ;  but  three  years  ago 
married  Lewis  S.  McClellan,  and  they  have  since  divided  their 
time  between  their  wheat  and  barley  farms  of  North  Dakota 
and  that  part  of  the  footstool  which  we  who  live  here  fondly 
call  "God's  Country." 

While  her  initial  employment  was  under  advisement, 
among  others  Emma  consulted  me  as  to  the  probabilities  of 
success  of  her  contemplated  trip  into  the  frozen  North,  and 
told  me  all  her  offers,  plans,  doubts,  fears,  and  hopes.  I  only 
said :  "Emma,  if  any  woman  on  earth  can  make  that  trip  suc- 
cessfully, you  are  that  woman."  That  settled  it ;  she  went  and 
won.  Upon  her  return  she  was  a  guest  out  at  our  home,  and 
the  memory  of  her  first  night  there  is  not  .forgotten.  At  din- 
ner she  commenced  to  talk  (and  no  one  can  be  more  graphic 
with  the  tongue)  of  her  personal  experiences  of  the  pa*t 
years,  the  perils  and  incidents  of  the  long  lonely  journey 
across  the  unknown  pass,  down  the  Yukon,  through  the  chain 
called  Bennett's  Lakes,  the  arrival  at  Dawson  just  the  night 
before  the  ice  covered  the  Yukon  and  closed  all  navigation 
and  travel ;  the  cancellation  of  many  mining  claims  and  the 
purchase  of  others;  the  wild  life  among  wilder  people;  the 
tragic,  dramatic,  and  comic  incidents  of  journey  and  life ;  and 


A  FEW   OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  363 

the  final  return  home  via  Ceh ring  Straits,  Seattle,  and  San 
Francisco.  She  was  so  interesting  in  all  these  details  that 
when  she  came  to  a  stopping-point,  about  2  A.  M.,  not  one  per- 
son around  t'.:at  board,  from  the  alleged  head  of  the  house  to 
the  youngest  grandchild,  ever  recalled  when  or  how  the  serv- 
ant removed  the  dishes  from  that  table,  nor  the  flight  of 
time. 

Among  many  things,  Emma  spoke  of  the  great  kindness 
then  shown  her  by  two  pioneer  Yukon  chums,  who  had  then 
been  in  that  country  for  fourteen  years,  and  knew  everything 
and  everybody  up  there — "Pat  and  Jack."  Pat,  of  course, 
was  Irish,  while  Jack  was  a  canny  Scot;  but  to  her  they  were 
as  loyal  and  faithful  as  any  two  dogs  of  the  North.  The  next 
morning  after  her  arrival  there,  Emma  was  looking  about 
Dawson  for  a  good  square  breakfast  after  her  many  long  days 
of  canoe,  camp,  and  inarch.  She  fell  in  with  and  inquired  of 
Pat.  Astonished,  he  said:  "Why,  you  must  be  somebody! 
Walk  right  up  <to  our  shack  and  you  shall  have  the  best  there 
is  on  the  Yukon."  En  route  thither,  he  inquired  and  she  gave 
him  her  full  name.  "Too  long,"  was  his  knowing  comment. 
"Then  call  me  Miss  Kelly,"  she  said.  "Miss  don't  go  on  the 
Yukon,"  he  answered.  "Then  call  me  Emma,"  she  suggested. 
"Won't  do,"  sa-id  Pat ;  "there  's  a  dance-hall  girl  in  this  town 
that  come  up  from  Frisco  who  answers  to  that  name;  you 
are  a  good,  square,  honest  woman  and  must  have  something 
good.  What's  your  other  name?"  She  told  him  it  was 
Leonidas.  He  first  said  that  was  also  too  long,  and  then,  after 
a  moment's  reflection,  he  inquired:  "Say,  how  does  Lonnie 
strike  you?"  She  said,  "All  right,"  and  by  that  short,  simple 
name  she  is  still  known  throughout  the  Yukon  country. 

Among  the  many  passengers  upon  the  rteamer  which 
brought  them  out  of  that  country  were  "Pat  and  Jack." 


364  RECOLLECTIONS 

Blessed  with  gold  and  mines  and  riches,  both  were  returning 
to  the  old  childhood  home  across  the  water  to  see  "the  old 
folks,"  and  paralyze  the  neighbors  after  their  many  years  of 
voluntary  exile  in  the  far  North.  At  San  Francisco  they  im- 
plored Emma  to  go  to  the  stores  and  buy  each  complete  out- 
fits of  good  clothing,  for  up  to  that  hour  each  had  worn  the 
garb  of  the  Yukon,  and  neither  knew  anything  about  the 
"store  clothes"  of  the  day.  She  did  so,  and  then  for  the  first 
time  in  fifteen  years  each  appeared  clad  as  a  gentleman.  They 
were  long  in  becoming  accustomed  to  this  change,  for  in  all 
these  years  neither  had  once  seen  the  other  except  clothed  in 
the  furs  and  skins  of  the  North.  So  they  looked  at  each  other 
long  and  lovingly,  and  at  last  the  tongue  of  each  found  ex- 
pression in  the  oft-repeated  words :  "Well,  I  '11  be  damned  !" 
Pat  and  Jack  stopped  with  Emma  at  Topeka  and  visitea 
with  the  Kellys  for  many  days.  Her  talks  in  Alaska  concern- 
ing her  kind,  good,  motherly  mother  had  a  fascination  for 
Pat,  for  they  reminded  him  of  his  own  mother  back  in  Ire- 
land. As  their  train  skimmed  eastward  over  the  Kansas 
prairies,  approaching  Topeka,  Pat  often  paced  back  and  forth 
in  their  sleeper,  much  agitated.  Finally  he  said  to  Emma : 
"Say,  Lonnie,  would  it  greatly  embarrass  your  mother,  and  do 
you  think  she  would  understand  it,  when  we  get  off  this  train 
if  I  should  kiss  her  just  once  as  I  would  if  she  were  my  own 
mother  in  Ireland?" 

JOHN  FLETCHER  McDouGAL,  Daviess  County,  Missouri. 
In  saying  a  word  concerning  the  life  and  death  of  my  vener- 
able father,  I  cannot  here  do  better  than  to  reprint  that  notice 
which  appeared  soon  after  his  death  in  a  local  newspaper,  and 
that  will  be  done. 

In  passing,  however,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  again,  as 
I  once  did  in  writing  a  short  history  of  our  Clan,  that  awav 


A  FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  365 

back  at  the  dawn  of  history  the  name  we  bear  was  spelled 
Dhu-Gal;  the  members  of  the  Clan  were  early  called  the 
"Kings  of  the  Isles,"  because  of  once  owning  all  the  islands 
of  the  sea  on  the  west  coast  of  the  Highlands ;  later  they  grew 
rich  and  powerful  and  owned  all  that  coast,  and  went  so  far 
in  1306  as  to  fight  with  and  overthrow  King  Robert  Bruce, 
and  for  a  time  reigned  and  controlled  all  of  Scotland.  The 
Bruce,  however,  again  gathered  his  scattered  forces  and  gave 
battle  to  the  Clan  now  known  as  the  McDougals,  defeated  and 
routed  them,  resumed  the  reigns  of  government,  and  since 
that  day  our  Clan  has  not  been  a  potent  factor  in  Scottish  his- 
tory. My  father's  sketch  was  this : 

"THE  PASSING  OF  A  PIONEER. 

"John  Fletcher  McDougal  died  at  the  home  of  his  grand- 
children, Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  E.  McCluskey,  in  Oilman  City, 
on  Monday  evening,  January  28,  1907,  in  the  ninety-third 
year  of  his  age. 

"Born  in  Marion  County,  Virginia,  on  May  I,  1814,  the 
lineal  descendant  of  the  ancient  Scottish  Clan  McDougal,  this 
venerable  man  inherited  from  his  rugged  ancestors  the  iron 
will  and  strong  constitution  which  prolonged  his  life  so  far 
beyond  the  allotted  'three  score  years  and  ten.'  His  grand- 
father, Rev.  William  McDougal,  a  distinguished  and  power- 
ful Presbyterian  preacher,  was  sent  as  a  young  man  by  the 
Presbyterians  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  to  take  charge  of 
an  isolated  band  of  that  Church  located  on  the  Monongahela 
River  in  Virginia  (now  Morgantown),  away  back  in  Colo- 
nial days,  and  literally  died  in  the  harness — preaching  up  to 
his  last  week — at  the  age  of  104  years;  while  Mr.  McDougal's 
father  and  mother  died  in  Virginia  in  1861,  eacli  nearly  nine- 
ty years  old. 

"Mr.  McDougal  was  twice  married.  First  in  his  early 
manhood  to  Elvira  Boggess,  by  whom  he  had  ten  children, 
seven  of  whom  survive  him ;  namely,  Martha,  wife  of  Dr.  R. 
L.  Greene,  Anadarko,  Oklahoma;  Margaret,  widow  of  David 
F.  Megill,  Tyro,  Kansas;  Delia,  wife  of  Wesley  Keplar,  Per- 
ry, Oklahoma;  Henry  C..  Kansas  City,  Missouri;  Festus  H., 


366  RECOLLECTIONS 

Princeion,  Missouri;  Luther  E.,  Eugene,  Oregon;  and  Clara. 
Elvira,  wife  of  Dr.  G.  A.  Tull,  Clay  Center,  Kansas.  His 
first  wife  dying  in  1855,  during  the  Civil  War  he  married 
Harriet  Upton,  who  died  about  three  years  ago,  and  by  whom 
he  had  two  children;  namely,  Basil  H.,  Van  Wyck,  Idaho,  and 
Maude,  wife  of  G.  Sterling  Tuthill,  Combs,  Arkansas. 

"As  a  farmer  and  stock-raiser,  Mr.  McDougal  prospered, 
provided  liberally  for  his  family,  lived  well,  educated  his  chil- 
dren, yet  by  his  frugal  habits  accumulated  a  comfortable  for- 
tune, nearly  all  of  which,  however,  he  distributed  equally 
among  all  his  children  some  two  years  ago,  since  which  time 
he  has  attended  to  little  if  any  business,  and  calmly  and  quiet- 
ly awaited  the  closing  scene  which  he  often  expressed  the 
hope  would  come  soon. 

"In  politics,  Mr.  McDougal  was  an  old  line  Whig  up  t® 
the  dissolution  of  that  great  national  party,  and  has  since  affil- 
iated with  the  Republican  party ;  but  above  all  he  was  a  pro- 
tectionist. Up  to  a  short  time  ago,  nothing  pleased  him  more 
than  to  tell  of  riding  75  miles  on  horseback  to  hear  Henry 
Clay  discuss  the  tariff  question  in  the  campaign  of  '36 ;  of  the 
disastrous  panic  of  '37,  etc.  He  died  in  the  firm  belief  that 
Henry  Clay  was  the  greatest  American  statesman,  living  or 
dead. 

"After  enjoying  a  successful  career  in  his  native  country, 
Mr.  McDougal  came  to  Missouri,  bought  a  large  farm  on  the 
'Bancroft  Prairie,'  in  Lincoln  Township  in  this  (Daviess) 
county,  forty-one  years  ago,  and  lived  on  that  prairie,  which 
to  him  was  the  fairest  and  the  best  in  all  the1-  world,  until  the 
end.  He  was  genial  and  companionable ;  no  one  loved  to  hear 
or  tell  a  joke  or  story  more  than  he.  Blessed  with  unusual 
strength  of  both  body  and  mind,  cloar  of  head  and  kind  of 
heart,  careful  and  close,  yet  just  and  fair  in  all  his  business 
transactions,  it  was  his  proud  boast  that  he  'never  either  cheat- 
ed or  got  cheated/  and  that  'his  word  was  as  good  as  his 
bond,'  and  both  were  true.  Thus  he  spent  the  ninety-three 
years  of  his  life,  and  thus  he  died.  No  wonder  he  has  held 
to  the  end  the  respect,  esteem,  and  confidence  of  all  who  knew 
him.  All  his  strong  mental  faculties  were  spared  to  him  in 
a  most  marked  degree,  and  up  to  about  a  year  ago  he  could 
read  and  write  without  glasses,  and  kept  fully  abreast  with 
the  events  of  the'  day.  Then  body,  mind,  and  memory  com- 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  367 

menced  to  fail,  and  for  months,  in  fancy,  he  lived  nearly  all 
the  time  'back  in  \  irginia'— with  the  family,  the  friends,  the 
trees,  the  streams,  and  the  mountains  of  his  boyhood  and 
early  manhood,  and  in  this  condition  he  finally  fell  into  a 
gentle  slumber,  even  as  a  chilJ  falls  asleep,  only  to  awaken 
en  the  further  shore. 

"On  Wednesday,  3Oth  inst,  the  warm-hearted,  generous, 
good  people  of  the  'Bancroft  Prairie' — ther  neighbors  and 
friends  among  whom  he  had  gone  in  and  out  for  more  than 
four  decades — with  tender  hands,  laid  away  in  the  Pilot  Grove 
churchyard  east  of  Bancroft  the  frail,  wasted  form  of  the 
genial  old  man  who  had  been  a  friend  of  all." — Gallatin 
\orth  Miswurian. 

ALFRED  ]\!EADE,  Fairmont,  West  Virginia:  This  mulatto 
was  born  a  Virginia  slave,  but  up  to  the  day  of  his  death  in 
1907,  then  over  four  score  years  of  age,  few  men  of  any  color 
were  blessed  with  more  real  friends,  and  I  never  knew  one 
who  more  deserved  them.  His  suavity,  gentleness,  and  rare 
good  sense  may  have  been  inherited  from  his  slave  mother,  or 
from  his  father,  who  was  reputed  to  have  been  once  the  Gov- 
ernor of  that  ancient  commonwealth ;  but  I  never  questioned 
him  and  never  knew,  accepted  him  at  his  face  value,  and  thai 
was  great.  The  spirit  moved  me  to  write  my  old  friend  a  let- 
ter on  New  Year's  day,  1901.  As  the  Fairmont  West  Vir- 
ginian, his  home  paper,  printed  that  letter  as  a  tribute  to  hi-^ 
memory  at  death,  it  is  here  reproduced  in  full: 

"AT  HOME. 

"KANSAS  CITY,  Mo.,  January  i,  1901. 
"To  Mr.  Alfred  Meadc  (Colored}: 

"DEAR  UNCLE  ALFRED, — I  have  just  read  in  The  West 
Virginian  an  account  of  the  death  and  burial  of  our  ol:l 
friend,  Isaac  Davenport.  I  am  sorry  he  is  gone,  for  as  boys, 
way  back  fifty  years  ago,  when  he  was  'Kearsley's  nigger,' 
we  played  and  laughed  and  sang  and  fought  together.  He 
was  black  and  a  slave,  I  white  and  free:  but  amon?  the  bovs 
of  that  country  and  time  these  little  differences  didn't  co-mt. 


368  RECOLLECTIONS 

Later  on,  when  I  was  mustered  out  of  the  Army  and  went 
to  Gallipolis,  Ohio,  as  a  clerk  in  the  Quartermaster's  Depart- 
ment, I  found  Ike  there  as  an  all-around  messenger  and  office- 
boy  in  the  same  office.  Because  we  had  •  known  each  other 
always  and  came  from  old  Marion  County,  Ike  was  espe- 
cially good  to  me.  Right  before  me  on  my  desk  now  is  a  pho- 
tograph of  a  group  of  ten  of  us  young  fellows  taken  at 
Gallipolis  on  Christmas  day,  1864,  after  we  had  all  partaken 
freely  from  a  big  bowl  of  egg-nog  prepared  and  presided 
over  by  Ike  Davenport,  and  it  saddens  me)  now  to  look  at  that 
group  and  know  that  out  of  the  ten  but  two  of  us  are  to-day 
living.  Ike  was  not  the  most  reliable  boy  in  the  world  in  those 
days,  but  he  cut  a  wide  swath  among  the  'contrabands'  who 
flocked  to  that  good  old  French  town  in  Ohio  from  the  Vir- 
ginias and  Kentucky,  for  he  could  laugh  like  a  comedian, 
talk  like  a  preacher,  or  swear  like  a  backslider,  as  the  occa,- 
sion  required,  and  was  very  much  in  demand.  But  Ike  was 
true  to  me,  kind  an:l  obliging,  and  I  never  saw  him  when  he 
was  not  in  a  good  humor.  So  I  always  liked  him,  an  1  a^ter 
coming  West,  I  never  revisited  the  old  home  without  hunting 
up  Ike  Davenport  for  a  long  talk  of  the  old  days. 

"When  I  was  in  Fairmont  last  September,  of  all  the  black 
men  I  had  known  when  a  boy,  I  met  and  talked  to  but  three 
whom  I  knew  as  slaves — yourself,  John  Jackson,  and  Isaac 
Davenport.  All  the  others,  like  most  of  my  familiars  of  that 
country,  were  then  sleeping  the  last,  long  sleep,  and  now  Ike 
sleeps  with  them. 

"After  spending  two  weeks  there  in  the  town  and  up 
about  my  old  home  on  Dunkard  Mill  Run,  visiting  old 
friends,  scenes,  and  graveyards,  finding  that  I  knew  so  few  of 
the  living,  so  many  of  the  dead,  I  then  realized  the  sad  fact 
that  I  need  no  longer  look  for  the  friends  I  had  known  and 
loved  during  boyhood  days  in  either  street,  highway,  home,  or 
church,  but  in  the  cemeteries  for  there  most  of  t':ern  rest, 
and  t>>ere,  and  there  alone,  I  knew  almost  elvery  one. 

"Sitting  here  at  home  in  my  library  on  this  the  first  day 
of  the  new  year  and  of  the  new  century,  writing  about  Tke, 
my  mind  runs  away  back  to  the  old  slavery  days — to  you 
and  Uncle  John  Jackson  and  Ike,  and  I  can't  recollect  the  day 
when  I  didn't  know  all  three  of  vou.  Again  I  see  outlined 
against  the  clear  blue  sky  tfr  tall,  straight,  stalwart  you'-g 
form  of  Uncle  John,  following  the  plow  away  up  on  the  hill 


A   FEW   OTHERS    WORTH   WHILE  369 

in  a  field  on  the  old  Cramer  farm — just  as  I  saw  him  while 
riding  down  the  Pike  with  my  father  half  a  century  ago. 
And  again  I  see  him  at  the  great  camp-meetings  the  Method- 
ists used  to  hold  at  old  Gilboa,  along  in  the  '503  out  under 
the  shade  of  the  great  oaks  between  the  camp-ground  anil 
Uncle  Elias  Dudley's  farm-house,  with  the  many  other  'Cra- 
mer niggers';  they  selling  ginger-bread,  'sweet  cakes,'  and 
cider,  and  he  at  his  crude  barber-chair,  shaving  the  young 
gallants  of  that  day  'two  days  under  the  hide,  suh.' 

"Looking  backward  through  the  mists  of  the  years  upon 
those  annual  gatherings  of  so  many  good  people,  I  am  to-day 
satisfied  that  what  I  most  worshipped  at  the  camp-meeting* 
was  the  luscious  ginger-bread  sol  1  by  the  darkies.  And  one 
thing  that  occurred  there  while  I  was  eating  a  large  section 
of  that  much-loved  'goody'  and  listening  to  the  happy  talk, 
laughter,  and  song  of  the  blacks,  I  shall  never  forget.  Now, 
I  knew  every  slave  in  the  country  by  his  Christian  name — as 
Alfred,  John,  Ike,  Jep,  Uncle  Watty,  and  the  like — and  so 
when  I  heard  someone  s-oeak  of  a  black  man  as  'Mister'  so 
and  so,  I  was  puzzled.  Upon  inquiry,  I  learned  for  the  first 
time  that  all  of  your  race  there  had  surnames  just  like  whito 
folks.  It  was  a  most  astonishing  revelation  to  the  boy  with 
the  ginger-bread. 

"And  as  to  you,  Uncle  Alfred :  I  trust  you  will  recall  with 
as  much  pleasure  as  I  do  the  facts  that,  as  a  boy  and  young 
man  at  the  ol  1  Mountain  City  House,  nothing  was  ever  too 
good  for  'Mister  Henry,'  and  I  was  the  only  guest  of  that 
house,  during  all  the  years  you  were  there,  that  ever  got  the 
exact  twist  of,  your  wrist  and  elbow,  and  rang  that  old  dinner- 
bell  precisely  as  you  did.  No  proprietor  could  ever  detect 
any  difference  between  your  ring  and  mine. 

"Then  as  raw  recruits  we  snent  the  day  before  we 
started  away  to  the  Big  War  in  July,  '61,  at  Fairmont,  in 
taking  all  sorts  of  strange  oaths — to  support  the  Constitution, 
uphold  the  flag,  obey  our  officers,  etc.,  and  in  drilling  in  'hay 
foot,  straw  foot'  fashion ;  and  when  night  came  and  our  Cap- 
tain (Showalter)  quartered  us  at  the  same  hotel,  I  was  too 
tired  and  hungry  to  think  of  anything  except  eating  and  sleep- 
in^.  But  I  was  the  youngest  of  the  country  boys  at  the  ho- 
tel (the  town  boys  sleeping  their  last  night  at  home),  and, 
with  your  usual  politeness  and  kindness,  you  looked  after  my 
wants,  gave  me  the  best  of  the  superb  hot  biscuits,  coffee, 


370  RECOLLECTIONS 

steak,  fried  chicken,  vegetables,  and  then  two  kinds  of  pie! 
By  George !  1  can  taste  that  supper  now.  But  I  'd  give  a  let 
of  money  to-day  if  I  could  get  as  hungry  as  I  was  when  I 
sat  down  at  that  table. 

"Later  on,  when  I  got  through  serving  Uncle  Sam,  and 
went  back  to  that  hotel  in  March,  '66,  and  fell  from  the  ope  i 
window  of  room  ISlo.  4  on  the  third  rloor,  it  was  you,  coming 
back  from  the  2  150  a.  in.  train,  who  discovered  me  moaning 
and  unconscious  on  the  pavement  below ;  you  that  carried 
me  up  stairs  to  my  room ;  you  that  went  out  in  the  storm  and 
darkness  and  brought  Doctor  Brownfield,  Benny  Burns,  John 
Crane,  and  Chap.  Fleming  to  my  bedside,  and  you  that  with 
them  kept  the  details  of  that  catastrophe  a  secret  until  I  told 
the  story  there  myself  years  afterward.  When  I  arrived  that 
clay,  the  boys  determined  to  give  me  a  supper.  As  usual,  I 
spent  the  evening  with  a  beautiful  girl,  and  when  I  got  back 
to  the  hotel  at  ten  o'clock,  the  boys  -urprised  me  by  their  pres- 
ence in  my  room,  as  well  as  by  the  table  loaded  with  good 
things  to  eat,  drink,  and  smoke.  You  waited  on  us.  To 
show  them  I  hadn't  forgotten  how  to  do  it,  I  took  two,  and  on 
ly  two,  drinks  of  whiskey  that  night.  In  those  days,  as  yon 
know,  I  could,  and  sometimes  did,  drink  till  'the  wee  small 
hours,'  and  after  two  hours'  sleep,  get  up  looking  as  pious, 
virtuous,  and  sober  as  a  priest.  So  I  have  always  believed 
that  the  loss  of  the  two  nights'  sleep  in  traveling  home  made 
me  so  drowsy  that  when  I  raised  the  window  to  let  out  the 
smoke  and  sat  down  on  the  sill  for  the  fresh  air,  I  went  to 
sleep  and  fell  out ;  but  maybe  it  was  the  two  drinks.  Wheth- 
er drunk  or  only  sleepy  doesn't  matter  now,  for  of  the  eleven 
clear  boys  who  honored  me  that  night,  all  save  three  are  skim- 
bering  in  their  graves  now,  and  the  survivors  are  sober,  se- 
date, and  honor?d  citizens,  well  along  in  years.  As  for  me, 
at  fifty-six  I  am  little  changed,  being  about  as  good  and  about 
as  bad  now  as  then.  And  looking  backward  without  regret, 
and  forward  without  fear,  I  to-clav  cross  the  threshold  of 
the  new  century  with  no  new  resolves  or  purposes,  content 
with  the  past,  hopeful  of  the  future.  Neither  the  long  years 
nor  the  sorrows  and  joys  of  the  century  just  closed  can  be 
mine  in  the  new  one.  But  I  earnestly  hope  that  while  o  i 
earth  I  may  enjoy  the  new  as  I  did  the  old,  and  most  of  all, 
that  I  may  do  as  much  good  and  as  little  harm  in  the  future 
as  in  the  past. 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   Wmu  371 

"Among  the  many  tender  memories  of  the  long  past,  but 
few  give  me  more  real  pleasure  than  the  recollections  of  my 
associations  with  the  unselfish,  generous,  kindly  people  of 
your  race  and  color —  then  mere  chattels.  My  knowledge  and 
observation  of  them  and  their  goodness  to  me  led  me  to  say, 
in  a  public  speech  here  some  years  ago,  that  I  should  always 
remember  the  old-time  negro  slave  as  'the  kindest  and  the 
most  faithful  of  the  creatures  of  God.'  Loving  fun  and 
laughter  and  music  and  song  and  dancing,  the  great  majority 
of  the  slaves  of  Virginia  had  all  their  kind,  sympathetic,  sim- 
ple hearts  could  wish,  except  the  one  thing  for  which  they  al- 
ways longed— freedom.  They  finally  got  that ;  but  I  have 
often  wondered  if,  after  freedom  came,  many  of  the  good, 
honest  old-timers  didn't  sigh  for  the  return  of  the  old  slavery 
days,  when  they  took  no  thought  of  the  morrow,  had  no  cares 
of  their  own,  sang  and  danced  in  the  cabins  at  night,  and 
always  had  more  fun  at  Christmas-times  than  did  their  mas- 
ters. The  negroes  of  the  new  generation  never  got  so  close 
to  my  heart  as  did  the  old-time  slaves.  In  them  there  is  to  me 
something  lacking,  whether  it  be  the  true  politeness,  gracious 
kindness,  honesty  of  purpose,  integrity,  truth,  and  faithful- 
ness of  the  old-time  slaves  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  say; 
but  certain  it  is  that  there  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  old 
and  the  new,  and  with  me  that  difference  is  all  in  favor  of 
the  old.  Still,  I  have  ever  been  and  to-day  am  the  friend  of 
the  Black  Man,  and  have  done  my  duty  in  earnest  effort  to 
uplift  nnd  better  the  conditions  of  old  and  new  alike. 

"That  you  and  Uncle  John  Jackson  are  to-day  the  only 
two  survivors  of  the  good  old  slaves  I  knew  as  a  boy  is  but 
another  of  the  thousands  of  reminders  of  the  flight  of  years. 
Man  and  master  will  alike  soon  pass  away — 'Earth  to  earth, 
ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust'  will  be  said  over  each,  and  then 
the  wondering  world  will  look  down  upon  the  grave  where 
sleeps  the  cold,  mute,  black  form  of  the  last  American  slave! 
That  you  will  live  to  be  the  last  survivor  of  that  race  I  dare 
not  hope,  for  you  are  now  well  stricken  in  years  and  thous- 
ands were  born  in  slavery  after  you  were  past  forty.  But  I 
do  earnestly  hope  "hat  you  are  to-day  enjoying  a  happy  New 
Year  and  that  in  peace  and  plenty  you  may  live  to  enjoy  many 
more. 

"The  return  of  my  good  wife  and  children  and  guests 
from  the  New  Century  matinee  recalls  me  from  the  dead  past 


372  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  the  living  present.  By  looking  over  my  paper,  I  find  that 
I  have  written  you  a  long,  long  letter.  I  '11  take  it  to  the  office 
in  the  morning  and  have  it  copied  on  the  typewriter,  so  that 
you  can  read  it.  It  has  been  a  pleasure  to  me  to  write  it,  for 
the  story  told  itself,  and  then — I  always  liked  to  talk  to  you, 
anyway. 

"And  so,  Uncle  Alfred,  with  grateful  and  loving  thanks 
to  yon  for  your  many  kindnesses  to  me  as  boy  and  man,  and 
with  kindly  remembrances  to  Uncle  John  Jackson  and  other 
old  friends,  black  and  white,  in  bidding  you  good-bye,  I  beg 
you  to  believe  through  life  that  I  remain. 
"Sincerely  your  friend." 

OH-LO-HAH-WAH-LA,  Chief  of  the  Osages,  Oklahoma: 
In  January,  1899,  I  was  dining  with  a  friend  one  night  at  the 
Pawhuska  Agency,  Oklahoma  Territory,  and  in  the  land  of 
the  Osages,  when  a  messenger  appeared  and  said  I  was  needed 
at  Maher's  Hotel  at  once.  I  went,  and  to  my  surprise  found 
ten  Osages  awaiting  me  at  the  hotel  office,  with  two  mixed- 
blood  Osage  interpreters;  but  what  these  dignified,  painted, 
blanketed  Chiefs  of  the  tribe  Osage  could  want  with  me  was 
mysterious.  The  interpreters  explained  that  these  were  the 
head  Chiefs  of  one  faction  of  their  tribe,  and  that  they  wished 
to  hold  a  "council"  with  me,  with  the  view  of  my  probable  em- 
ployment as  a  lawyer  to  represent  their  side  at  Washington  in 
the  pending  election  contest  between  Oli-lo-hah-wah-la  and 
,  Black  Dog  for  the  office  of  Principal  Chief  of  that  tribe.  The 
head  Chiefs  then  represented  clans  or  neighborhoods ;  the  real 
Chieftains  of  the  tribe  were  elected  biennially.  As  I  had  never 
seen  a  "council"  and  had  but  a  feeble  notion  as  to  what  to  do,  or 
how  just  then,  to  gain  time  and  pull  myself  together,  I  invited 
the  party  to  my  rooms  over  the  parlor  on  the  second  floor  of  the 
hotel,  where  we  could  have  a  private  talk.  All  agreed  to  the 
change  and  we  adjourned  upstairs.  I  never  thought  faster 
in  my  life  than  for  the  next  few  minutes.  While  the  inter- 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  373 

preters  arranged  chairs  for  their  Chiefs  in  a  semi-circle 
around  my  table,  I  recalled  the  facts  that  above  all  things  the 
Indian  admired  a  military  air,  and  doted  on  clear,  short  sen- 
tences and  gestures.  So  by  the  time  the  Chiefs  were  seated, 
my  Prince  Albert  was  closely  buttoned,  a  soldierly  front  pre- 
sented, and  standing  thus  at  the  head  of  my  table,  I  announced 
ready  for  the  "council."  The  Chief  to  my  right  in  the  circle 
was  Oh-lo-hah-wah-la.  He  arose  with  dignity,  adjusted  his 
blanket,  approached  the  table,  gave  my  hand  just  one  pump- 
handle  shake,  said  "How !"  and  returned  to  his  place,  where 
he  stood  and  made  his  speech  in  the  Osage  tongue.  The 
Chief  to  my  left  then  went  through  exactly  the  same  form- 
ula. The  others  followed  suit  until  all  had  thus  done  and 
spoken.  Each  of  the  ten  speeches  was  interpreted,  and  to 
each  1  replied  as  concisely  as  any  Indian,  through  the  same 
channel.  Then  in  the  Osage  tongue  they  gravely  and  earnest- 
ly consulted  for  some  minutes  and  at  its  close  thrice  spoke 
the  only  English  word  I  knew  :  "How !  How ! !  How  ! ! !" 
Answering  my  inquiry,  one  of  their  interpreters  explained : 
"They  say  they  like  you,  your  military  appearance  pleases 
them;  your  answers  are  highly  satisfactory;  they  want 
you  to  represent  them  as  their  counsel  at  Washington ; 
they  accept  your  terms,  and  will  have  the  cash  for  your 
fees  at  this  hotel  by  daylight  to-morrow  morning."  So 
the  "council"  ended ;  each  Chief,  beginning  with  the  first 
spokesman,  arose,  saluted,  shook  my  hand  once,  said  "How" 
again  for  "good-night,"  filed  out  of  the  room,  and  I  saw  them 
no  more.  Their  representative  wished  to  send  a  delegation 
of  the  "progressives''  with  me;  but  I  said  "No,"  and  chose 
Julian  Trumbly  to  accompany  me  to  Washington.  Julian  was 
born  here  at  Kansas  City,  on  the  present  site  of  the  old  Union 
Depot,  in  1848;  is  an  intelligent,  educated,  half-breed  Osage, 


374  RECOLLECTIONS 

knew  all  the  facts,  and  could  help  me  in  their  case.  Together 
we  journeyed  to  the  nation's  capital,  and  there  had  connecting 
rooms  at  the  old  Willard.  From  my  window  on  the  F  Street 
front  we  watched  the  pranks  played  by  the  big  snow-storm 
there  in  February,  1899,  and  that  fearful  night  entertained  in 
our  rooms  some  old  Washington  friends  who  could  not  reach 
their  homes  through  the  deep-drifting  snow.  For  days  I  was 
busy  arranging  our  testimony  and  preparing  a  brief  in  the 
case,  but  reserved  Julian's  affidavit  for  the  closing.  The  case 
was  at  last  set  down  for  hearing  by  the  Commissioner  of 
Indian  Affairs,  and  with  my  stenographer  I  was  anxious  and 
ready  for  my  last  bit  of  proof ;  but  Trumbly  had  disappeared ! 
After  an  absence  of  over  twenty-four  hours,  he  came  back 
to  our  rooms  and  submitted  his  statement  of  facts,  when  I 
learned  that,  like  a  true  son  of  the  forest,  he  had  been  holed 
up  in  a  room  sorrrewhere  preparing  his  affidavit  with  his  own 
hand  and  in  his  own  way.  This  statement  was  couched  in  the 
language  of  the  Indian,  but  was  as  clear,  strong,  and  able  in 
all  its  details  as  if  prepared  with  the  learning,  experience,  and 
wisdom  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  any  Supreme  Court  in  the 
land.  Julian  knew  his  ground,  accurately  stated  the  exact 
facts,  and  that,  too,  in  the  shortest  words.  So  when  all  our 
other  testimony  was  read  to  the  Commissioner  at  the  hearing, 
I  said  to  Trumbly :  "When  all  our  proof  is  in,  I  must  make 
an  oral  argument ;  my  voice,  you  see,  is  growing  hoarse,  and 
you  will  oblige  me  by  presenting  and  reading  your  own  testi- 
mony." He  did  so.  No  preacher  at  a  camp-meeting  ever 
"roared"  a  sermon  stronger  or  better ;  all  were  not  only 
pleased  but  delighted  with  the  effort,  and  our  case  was  taken 
under  advisement  on  that  day.  During  our  thirty-days  stay 
at  Willa  d's,  my  friend  Colonel  Van  Horn  was  a  frequent 
visitor  at  our  rooms,  and  he  and  Julian  became  warm  friends. 
One  night  Trumbly  said  to  me:  "I  like  the  Colonel;  he  is  my 


A  FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  375 

kind  of  a  man;  he  has  more  sense  than  anyone  I  have  met 
here ;  and  then  he  talks  with  his  head,  arms,  and  body,  as  well 
as  his  tongue,  just  like  an  Indian !" 

LA  SALLE  CORBELI,  PICKETT,  Washington,  D.  C.  Among 
the  many  books  written  and  printed  by  this  gifted  and  beau- 
tiful woman  may  be  named  "Pickett  and  His  Men"  and  the 
"In  De  Miz  Series,"  the  last  in  four  volumes.  Then  she  has 
also  written  many  short  sketches  which  may  to-day  be  found 
in  magazines  and  newspapers  throughout  the  country,  and  no 
one  is  more  popular  on  the  lecture  platform. 

She  was  born  and  reared  down  in  the  tide-water  country 
of  Virginia,  and  in  that  part  of  the  footstool,  away  back  in 
Colonial  days,  when  the  planter  did  not  wish  to  disclose  his 
exact  location,  or  the  human  interrogation  point  propound- 
ed the  inquisitive  question,  he  had  the  answer:  "From  Pi- 
anketank,  where  the  bullfrogs  jump  from  bank  to  bank." 
It  was  there  too  that  when  one  wished  to  convey  the  impres- 
sion that  he  knew  everyone  in  the  wide  world  worth  knowing, 
he  was  wont  to  say:  "Why,  sir,  I  know  everybody,  sir,  from 
tide-water  to  Piedmont."  The  valley  of  the  Piedmont  affords 
to-day  one  of  the  most  beautifully  attractive  bits  of  American 
scenery,  and  in  his  wide  sweep  to  the  westward  the  old  colo- 
nist was  not  far  from  right  when  he  stopped  at  that  valley. 

When  she  was  still  a  young  girl,  and  just  after  he  had 
led  the  historic  "Pickett's  charge  at  Gettysburg,"  La  Salle 
Corbell  was  married  to  that  dashing  Vriginian,  General 
George  E.  Pickett,  then  of  the  Confederate  Army.  The  story 
of  when,  where,  and  how  General  Pickett  marched  and  camped 
and  fought  from  that  day  on  to  the  surrender  in  April,  1865, 
is  told  in  the  most  graphic  and  accurate  manner  in  Mrs. 
Pickett's  first  book,  "Pickett  and  His  Men."  In  peace  an<l 
plenty  and  at  his  home,  the  fearless  Pickett  finally  joined  the 


376  RECOLLECTIONS 

great  and  silent  majority  in  1876,  and  since  then  Mrs.  Pick- 
ett  and  their  children  have  resided  nearly  all  the  while  at  the 
nation's  capital.  Neither  her  tongue  nor  her  pen,  have  been 
idle,  nor  could  they  be,  since  the  soldier  husband  passed  away, 
for  the  writings  and  lectures  of  the  widow  and  the  mother 
have  employed  all  her  time ;  she  has  there  reared  and  educated 
their  children ;  enlightened  and  entertained  her  unnumbered 
friends ;  held  the  confidence,  love,  and  esteem  of  all ;  and  scat- 
tered rays  of  sunshine  wherever  she  has  been;  and,  although 
her  ample  locks  have  long  been  white,  yet  through  the  years 
she  has  preserved  the  graceful  outlines  of  both  face  and  form, 
while  her  gleaming  white  teeth  (no  thanks  to  any  dentist, 
either)  are  to-day  like  those  of  a  girl. 

For  many  years  we  have  had  the  habit  of  helping  each 
other  over  the  rough  roads  of  life.  So,  naturally,  when  she 
called  upon  me  to  look  over  her  first  manuscript  of  "Pickett 
and  His  Men,"  I  responded.  To  me  it  seemed  that  this  book 
must  be  a  winner.  She  originally  contemplated  having  in  it 
a  full  reproduction  of  General  Pickett's  report  of  his  famous 
charge ;  but  the  Spanish-American  War  came  on ;  with  his  us- 
ual great  tact,  President  McKinley  appointed  her  son,  George 
E.  Pickett,  Jr.,  an  officer  in  the  Army;  the  North  and  South 
for  the  first  time  were  reunited  and  the  Civil  War  clouds  had 
relied  away  before  her  book  was  printed.  So  it  was  then 
deemed  best  to  omit  the  publication  of  that  report.  Hence 
the  public  does  not  know  to  this  day  just  what  General  Pick- 
ett said  about  Gettysburg.  Mrs.  Pickett  had  the  General's 
original  report  and  I  suppose  still  has  it,  for  I  have  read  it. 
She  also  knows  of  the  talk  between  R.  E.  Lee  and  George 
E.  Pickett  after  the  charge.  Pickett  made  his  report.  It 
was  never  made  public  and  was  then  returned  to  him  through 
the  proper  military  channels ;  but  out  of  compliment  to  the 


A  FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  377 

memory  of  Lee  and  "the  lost  cause,"  and  lest  old  wounds 
might  be  reopened  and  still  rankle,  the  solemn  and  soldierly 
words  of  the  great  Lee  were  respected  when  he  said:  "We 
have  the  enemy  to  fight."  No  good  could  come  now  from 
again  opening  a  controversy  waged  with  so  much  bitterness 
through  all  the  years,  and  perhaps  it  is  still  best  to  withhold 
both  report  and  talk;  but  a  curious  people  will  always  wonder 
how  and  why  all  these  historic  facts  have  been  withheld. 

WILLIAM  F.  SWITZLER,  Columbia,  Missouri.  Full  of 
years,  and  with  a  full  head  of  white  hair,  and  long  white 
beard  as  well,  this  good  man  slept  with  his  fathers  only  a 
short  time  ago.  From  an  early  day  in  the  West,  he  was  one 
of  our  most  forceful  and  perhaps  most  voluminous  newspaper 
writers,  and  wrote  a  number  of  attractive  an:l  readable  books, 
if  not  always  accurate ;  but  in  and  through  his  life  he  was  one 
of  our  most  forceful  and  perhaps  most  voluminous  newspaper 
a  staunch,  vigorous  Union  man,  and  his  people  honored  him 
with  membership  i:i  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1865  and 
again  in  that  of  1875. 

As  a  revered  member  of  the  Missouri  Historical  Society. 
Colonel  Switzler  was  present  when,  in  March,  1904,  I  «leliv- 
ered  my  address  to  that  Society,  in  his  town,  on  "A  Decade  in 
Missouri  Politics,  1860-1870,  from  a  Republican  Viewpoint." 
It  was  later  printed  in  full  by  that  Society.  For  thirty-five 
years  I  had  been  putting  in  an  envelope  in  my  office  desk 
many  forgotten  references  to  the  history  of  that  stirring  pe- 
riod, and  then  used  many  facts  and  things  not  generally 
known;  but  gave  to  loyal  Democrats  of  the  State  the  credit 
for  having  then  saved  Missouri  to  the  Union  Many  of  the 
over  50,000  who  were  Whigs  prior  to  that  war  became 
Democrats  soon  after  it  closed,  and  among  them  was  my 


378  RECOLLECTIONS 

friend  the  Colonel.  With  political  conditions  in  my  mind 
as  I  found  them  in  Missouri,  in  this  address  I  failed  to  give 
to  these  once  Whigs  their  due  credit  in  war,  and  had  said  in 
substance  that  the  long  Convention  of  1861-3  was  the  strong- 
est, ablest  body  of  men  ever  gathered  together  in  the  State. 
Colonel  Switzler  was  to  say,  on  the  same  day,  that  an  abler 
set  met  in  another  Convention — of  which  he  was  a  member. 
So  for  an  hour  after  I  closed  the  Colonel  was  furious,  be- 
cause of  these  two  statements.  Later  on,  we  met  at  the  St. 
Louis  World's  Fair  in  the  summer  of  190^,  and  the  Colonel 
graciously  told  me  that  he  had  since  read  my  address  with 
care  and  that  it  was  all  right  in  all  things,  except  the  Whigs 
should  have  been  given  their  proper  credit !  That  omission  he 
never  quite  forgave. 

THOMAS  H.  SWOPE,  Kansas  City,  Missouri.  This  public 
benefactor  and  philanthropist  was  born  in  Kentucky  eighty- 
two  years  ago,  graduated  from  Yale  College  with  the  class 
of  1849,  allcl  'm  I^57  came  to  and  resided  in  this  city  from 
that  time  until  his  death,  which  occurred  only  last  week. 
Among  many  other  public  benefactions,  he  donated  to  the 
people  of  Kansas  City  in  1896  the  beautiful  playground  which 
to-day  bears  his  name  and  consists  of  1354  acres  of  pictur- 
esque land  within  the  present  city  limits.  At  that  time  I  was 
City  Counselor,  and  when  Swope  Park  was  formally  opened 
to  the  public,  among  many  speeches,  I  made  a  little  talk,  the 
closing  of  which  was  this: 

"When  the  names  of  the  hardy  pioneers  who  pushed  their 
way  far  into  the  wilderness  and  established  Westport  Land- 
ing shall  have  be^n  lost  in  the  tangled  wildwood  of  memory , 
when  the  names  of  the  strong  men  who,  a  third  of  a  century 
ago,  by  brain  and  muscle  raised  the  straggling  hamlet  of 
Westport  Landing  into  the  dignity  of  the  cjty  of  Kansas  City 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  379 

shall  have  been  forgotten ;  when  the  men  who  speak  and  the 
women  who  sing  and  laugh  and  love  here  to-day  shall  have 
mouldered  baci<  to  dust ;  when  generations  of  Kansas  Cityans 
yet  unborn  shall  gather,  as  we  have  to-day,  beneath  the  cool- 
ing shade  of  these  grand  old  oaks  and  elms  and  shall  inhale 
the  perfume  of  flowers,  the  invigorating,  health-giving  airs 
that  blow  so  balmy  nowhere  as  in  Missouri  groves;  when 
Kansas  City  shall  have  increased  its  limits  until  this  park  is 
surrounded  by  homes  and,  instead  of  the  population  of  to- 
day, Kansas  City  shall  contain  one  million  of  people — then 
will  there  still  be  one  name  that  is  a  household  wor  1  in  this 
city,  one  man  whose  memory  will  be  revered  and  praises  sung 
— that  name  will  be  the  name  of  the  pioneer  public  benefac- 
tor of  Kansas  City — Thomas  H.  Swope." 

SEYMOUR  DWIGHT  THOMPSON,  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  was 
born  in  Illinois  in  1842;  removed  when  a  boy  to  Iowa,  where 
his  father  and  brother  lost  their  lives  in  a  prairie  fire; 
served  his  country  in  the  Civil  War,  first  as  a  sergeant  in  the 
3d  Iowa  Infantry,  and  was  mustered  out  as  a  captain  in  1866; 
located  at  St.  Louis  in  1871,  there  became  first  the  associate 
of  John  F.  Dillon  as  the  editor,  an.l  later  owned  and  edited 
the  Central  Law  Journal,  commencing  January  I,  1874;  ed- 
itor of  the  now  American  Law  Review  at  St.  Louis  from 
1875  up  to  his  death;  Associate  Justice  of  the  St.  Louis  Court 
of  Appeals  from  1880  to  1892;  and  finally  died  at  East 
Orange,  New  Jersey,  in  1904. 

From  its  initial  publication  up  to  about  1880,  each  mem- 
ber of  our  old  law  firm  of  Shanklin,  Low  &  McDougal  was 
a  frequent  contributor  of  leading  articles  to  the  Central  Law 
Journal,  edited  by  Thompson;  Colonel  Shanklin  often  con- 
tributing strong,  clear  papers  on  criminal  law,  M.  A.  Low  up- 
on all  sorts  of  legal  questions,  while  my  only  production  of 
consequence  was  a  leader  on  "Directing  a  Verdict"  in  1878. 

In  addition  to  his  editorial  and  judicial  utterances, 
vast  number  of  law  lectures  and  legal  monogra;,ln.  Judge 


380  RECOLLECTIONS 

Thompson  wrote  and  printed  many  law-books,  and  among 
these  I  now  recall  his  works  on  Self-Defense,  Bankruptcy, 
Homesteads,  Passengers,  Negligence,  The  Jury,  Directors  of 
Corporations,  Electricity,  Stockholders,  Trials,  Corporations 
(7  vols.),  and  when  he  died  his  enlarged  Negligence  in  six 
volumes  was  going  through  the  press. 

Up  to  date  no  other  American  law  writer  has  either  writ- 
ten so  much  or  so  well  as  Thompson.  Others  often  merely 
compile,  never  originate  anything,  express  no  individual  opin- 
ion; but  he  personally  examined  every  case  cited,  wrote  good 
law,  and  yet  had  and  expressed  his  own  opinion  upon  the 
right  or  wrong  of  every  mooted  question  upon  which  he 
touched.  So  he  was  a  fair  and  just  commenter,  and  not  a 
mere  cobbler  of  the  theories  of  others. 

Every  summer  he  took  a  vacation  abroad,  lasting  from 
weeks  to  many  months,  and  he  always  took  along  his  eyes  and 
his  brains.  In  that  way  he  became  familiar  with  the  peoples, 
languages,  customs,  habits,  history,  literature  of  the  world 
as  only  the  fewest  travelers  ever  come  to  know  all  thes ' 
things.  That  traveler  understands  nothing  he  sees,  an:l 
would  always  better  remain  at  home,  who  does  not  possess 
the  necessary  combination  of  time  and  money,  eyes  and  gray 
matter. 

From  his  legal  writings,  royalties,  lectures,  counsels,  law 
practice,  salaries,  etc.,  Thompson's  annual  receipts  were  for 
many  years  largely  in  excess  of  that  of  the  ordinary  prac- 
titioner, but,  unfortunately,  he  felt  that  he  had  a  champagne 
appetite  with  a  beer  income,  was  an  improvident  spendthrift, 
and  in  consequence  was  always  in  hard  lines  financially. 
Nothing  was  too  good  for  either  his  family  or  his  friends, 
everybody  that  knew  him  loved,  respected,  and  admired  the 
man  for  his  rare  attainments,  as  well  as  for  his  goodness, 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  381 

and  had  his  annual  income  been  a  million,  his  output  would 
have  aggregated  more. 

In  law,  oratory  poetry,  literature,  travel,  he  was  equally 
at  home,  and  in  all  these  his  memory  was  the  especial  marvel 
and  admiration  of  his  friends,  while  no  one  ever  conversed 
about  it  all  in  a  more  entertaining  way. 

As  one  of  the  division  attorneys  of  what  is  now  the  Wa- 
bash  Railroad,  I  was  often  at  St.  Louis  in  the  old  days,  and 
always  there  was  a  guest  at  the  Planters'  House,  while 
Thompson  lived  out  on  Lafayette  Park.  Often  there  at  the 
hotel,  in  the  evening  I  found  all  bills  paid,  my  belongings 
gone,  and  a  note  from  Thompson  saying  that  my  luggage 
would  be  found  at  his  home ;  be  sure  and  be  there  to  dinner ! 
That  was  his  way  with  his  friends.  With  pleasure  I  now  re- 
call the  fact  that  one  evening  after  dinner  out  there,  he  said 
to  me  near  midnight:  "I  must  review  a  New  York  Digest 
to-night  and  you  must  help  me."  He  called  his  stenographer 
into  his  den,  and  we  two  began  that  review,  dictating  words 
of  praise  and  criticism,  and  alternating  in  the  work.  This 
was  kept  up  for  an  hour  by  first  one  and  then  the  other. 
When  done,  it  was  the  worst  lot  of  patch-work  ever  turned 
out,  and  later  on  this  criticism  was  printed  just  as  we  left  it ; 
but  no  lawyer  ever  heard  of  that  Digest  afterward ! 

On  another  occasion  I  declined  to  go  out  to  Thompson's 
home,  because  I  had  to  take  the  Wabash  Cannonball  at  9:20 
that  evening  and  try  a  land  case  up  in  Gentry  County,  200 
miles  away,  on  the  following  day.  But  he  knew  a  French 
restaurant,  with  sawdust  floor,  down  on  Second  Street  in  St. 
Louis,  where  we  could  get  everything  good  to  eat  and  drink, 
including  jowls  and  greens,  and  imported  wines  from  sunny 
France.  Well,  we  dined  there,  and  in  that  house  nothing 
was  neglected.  Thompson  repeated,  in  the  French,  and  then 


382  RECOLLECTIONS 

translated  into  English  for  me,  every  pivotal  order  issued 
by  the  first  Napoleon  in  all  his  campaigns.  For  Napoleon 
the  admiration  of  my  friend  knew  no  bounds,  and  his  talk 
was  so  thoroughly  interesting  that  when  I  glanced  at  my 
watch  it  was  past  my  train  time.  Thompson  only  said : 
"Now  you  must  stay  another  twenty-four  hours,"  and  at 
once  resumed  his  Napoleonic  recitation  of  facts,  campaigns, 
and  so  forth. 

When  he  was  closing  his  seven-volume  work  on  "Cor- 
porations," out  in  California  in  1893,  I  happened  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  was  there  the  guest  of  Judge  Thompson  for  some 
weeks.  One  Saturday  night  he  took  the  floor  early  and  kept 
it  until  midnight,  and  then  I  had  my  innings  for  two  hours. 
We  were  alone  in  that  big  house  on  California  Street,  and 
not  many  of  our  reminiscences  would  have  gone  through  Un- 
cle Sam's  mails.  Finally  both  retired,  he  in  the  front  parlor 
and  I  in  the  back,  and  the  lights  were  extinguished.  Then 
Thompson  said:  "McDougal,  there  is  just  one  more  story  I 
want  to  tell  you."  In  his  bournous,  he  relighted  the  rooms, 
sat  out  in  front  of  me,  and  began  the  repetition  of  his  first  ex- 
periences at  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt  and  of  Boukier,  his  guide. 
But  he  had  forgotten  that  he  once  told  me  all  about  this  trip 
in  St.  Louis,  and  naturally  I  was  not  so  much  interested. 
There  he  sat,  with  the  hood  of  that  bournous  drawn  over 
his  head  as  he  had  seen  the  Bedouins  use  it,  and  looking  for 
the  world  like  the  pictured  Sphinx.  I  happened  to  look  at 
a  clock  just  above  him,  saw  it  was  4:30  A.  M.,  and  prompt- 
ly went  to  sleep !  Neither  ever  knew  how  long  Thompson 
continued  his  talk.  Then  and  there  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
bringing  together  him  and  that  other  great  American  traveler, 
my  friend  and  neighbor,  Fred  Howard. 


A   FEW  OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  383 

Thompson  was  the  only  soldier  1  ever  knew  personally 
that  throughout  the  war  carried  in  his  knapsack  a  law-book. 
But  much  of  his  vast  law  learning  was  acquired  in  this  way, 
and  he  never  overlooked  either  the  planning  and  execution  of 
a  military  campaign,  or  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  pro- 
fession. He  learned  both  while  in  actual  war.  Th?  last 
right  we  spent  together  was  at  a  Loyal  Legion  banquet  at 
the  Midland  Hotel  in  Kansas  City,  not  long  before  his  final 
muster-out.  In  all  his  public  addresses  he  simply  talked, 
just  as  if  he  were  dictating  to  a  stenographer,  and  he  often 
told  me  that  this  was  the  only  way  he  could  accurately  state 
and  impress  his  thoughts  upon  an  audience.  At  the  banquet 
in  question,  lie  gave  one  of  the  most  graphic  war  experiences 
I  ever  heard,  in  his  account  of  an  expedition  he  made  in  the 
fall  of  1861  from  Kansas  City  to  Sedalia,  Missouri.  Thomp- 
son was  then  an  Iowa  sergeant,  and,  dressed  in  citizen's 
clothes,  he  crrriel  in  his  head  an  important  military  dispatch 
from  on?  commanding  general  to  the  other — probably  Cur- 
tis to  Sigel.  His  description  of  the  mule  he  rode,  his  details 
of  his  three  captures  by  the  Confederate  and  two  by  th?  Un- 
ion forces,  the  routes  of  travel,  the  perils  and  the  fun  of  the 
trip  cannot  be  reproduce:!  from  memory,  and  I  only  hear 
his  voice  ami  S3?  again  the  veterans  as  they  listened  to  that 
wondrous  recital. 

GEORGE  L.  ULRICK,  Carrizozo,  New  Mexico,  is  a  native 
of  New  Orleans,  Louisiana,  was  educated  in  the  schools  and 
universities  of  his  native  State,  finishing  his  scholastic  career 
in  the  temples  of  learning  across  the  water  •  but,  like  many  oth- 
er high-strung  youngsters  of  the.  South,  had  a  row  or  misun- 
derstanding with  his  early-day  sweetheart  down  there,  drift.- 1 
'.to  New  Mexico  long  ago,  and  firr.t  located  at  White  Oaks. 


384  RECOLLECTIONS 

There  on  the  then  frontier  of  cur  American  civilization,  Ul- 
rick  sought  to  drown  the  memory  of  the  sorrows  of  earlier 
times  in  hard  work.  For  a  short  time  he  clerked  in  the  store 
of  "Whiteman  the  Jew" — since  made  famous  through  many 
books  relating  to  that  country — and  then  became  in  turn  a 
surveyor,  prospector,  miner,  herder,  rancher,  and  cow-man ; 
slept  on  the  desert  sands  and  on  sheep-skins ;  lived  much  out 
in  the  open,  and  finally  became  the  vice-president  and  general 
manager  of  a  bank  which  he  lately  removed  from  White  Oaks, 
a  dozen  miles  down  the  canon  to  the  thriving  city  of  Carrizozo. 
In  all  these  years  he  has  continued  his  scholarly  accomplish- 
ments ;  his  love  of  books  is  still  strong,  he  is  widely  read  and 
up  to  date  in  the  literature  of  the  world's  classics,  few  better 
know  the  history  and  language  of  the  Greek,  Latin,  French, 
and  English  peoples,  and  in  all  this  time  he  has  never  once 
forgotten  the  fact  that  he  is  a  born  gentleman. 

Not  long  ago  he  was  down  at  El  Paso,  Texas,  looking 
after  some  banking  business,  and  on  the  street  there  accident- 
ally came  face  to  face  with  the  girl  he  knew  and  loved  long 
ago  at  their  childhood  home  in  New  Orleans.  Story-book  and 
magazine  writers,  at  great  and  interesting  length,  and  with  a 
perfect  wealth  of  detail,  often  tell  just  how  such  meetings  re- 
sult; but  what's  the  use?  All  I  now  say  is  that  these  two 
children  of  larger  growth  were  soon  married  and  are  now  liv- 
ing in  their  own  beautiful  home  at  Carrizozo.  Mrs.  McDougal 
and  I  there  spent  a  delightful  week  with  them  in  May,  1909, 
after  two  such  weeks  with  Judge  Hewitt  up  at  White  Oaks. 

Ulrick  still  attends  to  his  bank  and  looks  after  the  busi- 
ness affairs  of  his  legion  of  frontier  neighbors  and  friends 
in  the  old  way,  while  Mrs.  Ulrick  presides  like  a  queen  at 
their  home ;  and  to  each  other,  as  well  as  to  close  friends,  thev 
are  still  "George"  and  "Tish,"  much  like  they  were  in  their 
old  home  "away  down  south  in  Dixie." 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE 

This  generalization  will  be  pardoned:  Having  read  and 
studied  most  of  the  books  in  the  library  and  being  somewhat 
familiar  with  the  peoples,  history,  and  literature  of  the  great 
Southwest,  growing  out  of  my  many  visits  down  there  within 
the  past,  I  have  an  abiding  fondness  for  the  people  and  un- 
bounded confidence  in  the  future  of  New  Mexico.  To  me 
there  is  nothing  so  enjoyable  as  the  fresh,  pure  air,  the  wide 
sweep  of  prairie,  plain,  desert,  and  forest,  and  the  unaffected, 
free,  open-handed,  warm-hearted  natural  people  of  that  country. 
Nor  is  it  strange  that  those  who  have  long  lived  there  know 
more  than  the  average  man.  The  herder  of  cattle  or  sheep, 
the  underground  delver  in  mines  for  gold,  silver,  copper,  lead, 
or  coal,  as  well  as  the  dweller  in  desert  or  forest,  has  the  time 
to  and  does  reflect  upon  and  reason  out  problems  of  which  the 
world  knows  little.  They  live  alone,  see  few,  read  little,  and 
simply  think.  For  many  years  there  I  have  personally  known 
and  highly  respected  Jo  Spence  and  his  brothers.  They 
went  to  New  Mexico  poor,  and  engaged  in  rearing  and  herd- 
ing and  looking  after  cattle  and  sheep,  remote  from  civiliza- 
tion, seldom  meeting  anyone  save  the  buyer  of  live  stock  or 
wool.  After  years  of  isolation  and  attention  to  business,  the 
three  Spence  brothers  sold  out  ranches  and  herds,  divide*  1 
their  money,  each  one  taking  $75,000,  and  Jo  and  one  of  hi* 
brothers  at  once  started  upon  and  made  a  long  stay  in  Europe. 
Upon  their  return  thence,  Jo  was  our  guest  here  at  Kansa, 
City,  and  that  young  man  then  gave  us  one  night  by  far  the 
most  interesting  and  instructive  talk  to  which  I  ever  listened 
on  his  personal  descriptions  of  the  relative  attributes  of  the 
many  foreign  peoples  of  the  countries  through  which  they  had 
traveled  and)  of  their  international  trade,  labor,  and  business 
relations.  Why?  Because  in  his  long  years  upon  the  plains 
Jo  had  been  alone,  reflected  deeply,  talked  little,  and,  above  all. 
had  absolutely  nothing  to  unlearn. 


386  RECOLLECTIONS 

With  and  among  such  a  people  for  nearly  a  generation — 
college-bred  men  and  women,  readers  and  students,  thinkers 
and  doers,  cow-punchers,  sheep-herders  and  cattle  barons, 
preachers  and  teachers — George  L.  Ulrick  has  been  on  the  same 
free  and  easy  terms  as  mark  the  man  to-day.  His  personal 
experiences  and  stories  of  life  upon  that  border  are  always 
tinged  with  a  human  interest  that  is  little  short  of  marvelous 
to  the  tenderfoot;  while,  along  with  other  things,  he  knows 
everybody  and  everything  worth  while,  from  the  Panhandle  of 
Texas  to  the  Rio  Grande. 

When  visiting  at  the  home  of  the  Ulricks,  wife  and  I  were 
driven  on  many  short  excursions  out  to  the  lava-beds  (down 
on  maps  as  the  Mai  Pais),  to  cattle  and  sheep  camps,  to  moun- 
tains, to  the  famous  Carrizozo  cattle  ranch,  known  as  "The  Old 
Bar  W,"  and  from  there  spent  one  more  glorious  Sunday  down 
at  Alamogordo  as  guests  of  our  old  friend,  General  Byron 
Sherry,  and  thence  back  home. 

REUBEN  ALESHIRE  VANCE  was  born  in  1845  at  Gallipolis, 
Ohio,  educated  along  with  my  wife  at  the  old  Gallia  Academy 
there,  served  throughout  the  Civil  War  in  the  4th  West  Vir- 
ginia Infantry  Volunteers,  with  his  father,  Captain  Alexander 
Vance,  and  his  elder  brother,  Colonel  John  Luther  Vance,  who 
commanded  that  regiment  at  its  muster-out  in  1865;  afterward 
became  distinguished  as  a  physician  and  surgeon  and  died  at 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  in  1894. 

After  his  regiment  quit  the  field  and  he  returned  home, 
we  first  met.  I  noticed  that  he  never  attended  the  parties  or 
balls  with  others  of  the  younger  crowd  and  learned  that  this 
was  attributable  in  part  to  his  native  modesty  and  reticence, 
but  mainly  to  a  vague  suspicion  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  he  had  not  done  in  all  things  as  some  of  the  rich  and  proud 
French  of  that  ancient  city  thought  he  should.  That  did  not 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  387 

appeal  to  me.  So  I  first  made  him  my  assistant  in  the  office  of 
the  Depot  Quartermaster  at  Gallipolis;  and  next  insisted  that 
he  attend  all  public  functions  along  with  our  crowd,  which 
then  dominated  the  town.  This  he  did.  Nothing  was  too  rich 
for  his  blood  after  that.  When  I  was  sent  to  Cincinnati  as 
agent  to  the  Quartermaster  General,  I  secured  a  position  in 
that  city  for  my  good  friend,  and  we  there  spent  the  summer 
and  fall  of  1865  together.  On  bidding  him  good-bye  at  the 
old  Henrie  House  on  Third  Street  there,  as  he  was  starting 
East  to  a  medical  college,  late  that  autumn,  he  said  to  me: 
"I  will  some  day  get  back  to  Gallipolis  and  teach  those  damned 
rich  relatives  of  mine  that  I  have  more  brains  and  more  learn- 
ing than  all  of  them  combined."  He  did.  For,  at  the  head  of 
his  class  in  all  things,  he  finally  was  graduated  at  the  Bellevue 
Medical  College  in  New  York  in  1867;  was  at  once  made 
house  physician  and  surgeon  of  the  hospital  connected  with 
that  college  (an  official  position  theretofore  held  by  Dr.  Wil- 
liam A.  Hammond,  at  one  time  Surgeon-General  of  the  U.  S. 
Army)  ;  resigned  his  office  and  practiced  his  profession  private- 
ly in  the  cities  of  New  York  and  London,  traveled  through- 
out Continental  Europe,  and  returned  to  his  old  home  about 
ten  years  later,  famed  throughout  the  English-speaking  world. 
His  unusual  abilities  were  long  familiar  to  his  professional 
brethren,  and  as  a  surgeon  they  always  ranked  him  first.  But 
I  shall  say  a  word  about  the  man  and  his  wonderful  memory. 

While  in  New  York  he  married  a  niece  of  Peter  Cooper, 
the  great  philanthropist,  and  I  have  not  met  a  brighter  or  bet- 
ter wife  and  mother.  The  light  of  my  friend's  life  went  out 
when  she  passed  away  in  1890. 

When  I  visited  at  the  home  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Vance  in 
1878;  he  was  preparing  a  paper  for  some  British  periodical 
explaining  the  origin  of  two  mistakes,  the  one  relating  to  "the 
previous  question"  and  the  other  to  the  "seal."  But  the  real 


388  RECOLLECTIONS 

surprise  of  the  occasion  came  when  the  doctor  produced  an 
autograph  letter  from  the  great  Charles  Darwin.  I  had  been 
something  of  a  student  of  his  writings,  and  up  to  that  hour 
had  assumed  that  Darwin  knew,  mankind  inside  and  out  bet- 
ter than  anyone  in  his  learned  profession.  But  in  this  letter 
Darwin  asked  Dr.  Vance  to  make  a  close,  careful  anatomical 
examination  of  an  opossum  and  a  rabbit,  or  other  of  the  lower 
order  of  animals,  and  ascertain  if  they  possessed  a  certain  valve 
which  he  had  discovered  in  man,  and  closed  his  letter  by  say- 
ing :  "I  ask  you  to  do  this,  my  dear  Doctor  Vance,  for,  as  you 
know,  I  know  absolutely  nothing  of  practical  anatomy."  Dar- 
win's reasoning  was  all  on  purely  inductive  lines;  but  it  was 
great. 

Dr.  Vance  was  later  practicing  his  profession  at  Cincin- 
nati, and  while  in  that  city  in  the  Kautz  will  case  in  1880  and 
1881,  I  spent  much  time  with  him.  He  was  so  absorbed  in 
thought  and  reflection  that  he  apparently  cared  but  little  for 
his  fellows,  was  characterized  as  an  Ishmaelite  by  many,  and 
those  nearest  him  have  told  me  that  he  uniformly  spoke  well 
of  but  two  men — his  brother,  Colonel  John  Luther  Vance,  and 
myself.  But  to  these  two  he,  was  always  attentive,  gracious, 
kind,  and  good.  He  was  once  in  a  row  there  with  his  profes- 
sional brethren  and  was  to  deliver  an  address  in  answer  to 
their  criticism  upon  one  of  his  public  positions.  Knowing  all 
this,  I  tried  to  leave  him  to  himself  on  the  day  he  was  to  make 
his  argument,  so  that  he  might  be  thoroughly  prepared.  But 
he  would  not  hear  to  this,  refused  to  look  after  his  patients, 
and  laughed  and  talked  all  day  long  with  me  until  we  started 
to  walk  to  the  hall.  Then  he  said :  "Don't  speak  a  word  to 
me  until  we  start  back  home."  His  answer  to  his  critics  was 
a  marvel  of  learning,  eloquence,  and  logic ;  the  lilt  and  swing 
of  his  tongue  was  grandly  musical,  and  for  a  word  or  thought 
or  clear  argument  he  never  hesitated  for  a  moment.  When 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  !38t> 

he  closed,  all  conceded  that  his  answer  was  perfect  and  com- 
plete ;  that  all  others  had  been  in  error  and  he  alone  right  upon 
that  particular  question.     No  one  was  more  astounded  than 
myself,  for,  while  I  had  long  known  that  he  had  more  of  both 
wisdom  and  knowledge  than  anyone  else  I  ever  knew,  yet  I 
had  never  heard  him  talk  on  his  feet  until  that  night.    As  we 
walked  back  home,  in  answer  to  my  inquiry,  he  explained  to 
me  that  he  never  prepared  anything  in  advance,  and  always, 
waited  for  the  inspiration  to  come  as  he  was  commencing 
speech,  letter,  or  whatever  else  came  up;  that  in  theory  he 
then  divided  his  head  into  a  sort  of  an  apartment-house,  with 
just  five  numbered  rooms  on  each  floor,  and  as  many  floors 
as  his  subject  demanded ;  that  in  arranging  any  mental  effort, 
he  commenced  by  placing  fact  number  one  in  room  number 
one  on  the  first  floor,  and  continued  on  until  he  had  filled  every 
room  on  that  floor;  then  treated  all  remaining  facts,  rooms, 
and  floors  in  the  same  way,  until  his  task  was  completed ;  but 
he  said  he  must  have  perfect  quiet  while  this  was  being  done, 
and  that  up  to  date  he  had  made  it  a  practice  to  begin  with  his 
fact  number  one,  used  each  fact  in  its  turn  and  room,  and  hart 
yet  to  lack  for  a  moment  for  an  argument.     Only  a  Vance 
could  do  a  turn  like  that ;  I  've  tried  it,  and  the  scheme  does 
not  work  for  me. 

One  day  while  in  his  office  a  telegram  came  entreating  the 
Doctor  to  take  the  first  train  out  of  Cincinnati  for  St.  Paul, 
Minnesota,  and  there  perform  an  operation  on  some  distin- 
guished lawyer.  He  handed  the  message  to  me,  and  while  I 
was  reading  it,  the  Doctor  wrote  his  answer,  which  simply 
said:  "Request  comes  too  late;  the  Judge  will  die  before 
morning."  The  next  morning's  papers  contained  a  press  dis- 
patch announcing  the  fact  that  this  lawyer  had  died  at  mid- 
night. 


390  RECOLLECTIONS 

One  day  in  1881  we  went  together  to  an  old  second-hand 
book  store  down  on  Vine  Street  there,  where  he  had  seen  a 
copy  of  an  ancient  religious  book  antedating  Fox's  "Book  of 
Martyrs,"  and  which  he  wished  to  purchase  and  give  to  me. 
In  going  through  the  musty  stock,  I  picked  up  a  black  letter 
copy  of  "Rasselas"  and  'asked :  "Reub,  do  you  recollect  when 
you  first  read  this  book?"  At  a  quick  glance  he  answered: 
"Yes,  back  in  the  summer  of  '65  you  left  it  here  in  my  den ;  I 
read  it  that  night,  and  often  thought  I  'd  like  to  look  at  it 
again,  but  haven't ;  I  've  often  thought  of  it,  and  believe  to-day 
that  Dr.  Johnson's  opening  in  that  volume  is  the  clearest  and 
the  best  production  in  the  English  language."  Then  he  com- 
menced to  quote,  "Ye  who  listen  with  credulity  to  the  whispers 
of  fancy,  and  pursue  with  eagerness  the  phantoms  of  hope"; 
and  for  many  minutes  continued  to  quote,  and  I  think  accur- 
ately, from  the  opening  chapter  of  that  wonderful  book,  and 
this,  too,  after  having  read  it  only  once  sixteen  years  before! 
Of  course,  Reub  was  exactly  right  in  his  statements  of  fact. 
I  have  kept  "Rasselas"  in  my  library  ever  since  that  night  in 
'65,  and  read  and  admired  its  commencement,  possibly  a  hun- 
dred times;  but  the  quotation  just  made  is  as  far  as  I  can  go 
into  it  to-day 

On  account  of  his  wife's  health,  Dr.  Vance  removed  to 
Cleveland  soon  after  this,  and  there  remained  until  the  end. 
There  I  often  spent  some  days  beneath  his  hospitable  roof, 
and  never  once  without  both  interest  and  instruction. 

In  1886  my  eyes  became  somewhat  dim,  and,  being  very 
busy,  I  had  them  examined  by  many  oculists  near  by,  all  of 
whom  recommended  absolute  rest  for  the  eyes  and  varied  only 
as  to  the  time,  some  saying  for  a  year  and  others  for  six 
months.  As  I  could  still  read  print  just  as  close  to  my  eyes 
and  as  far  away  as  ever,  I  knew  all  these  oculists  were  wrong ; 
but  the  eyes  grew  weary  in  a  few  minutes,  and  I  determined 


A  FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  391 

to  consult  my  old  friend  at  Cleveland.  Mrs.  Vance  boarded 
the  same  train  there  for  New  York  that  I  alighted  from,  and 
so  we  two  old  cronies  were  left  alone  in  their  home.  Dr. 
Vance  would  neither  let  me  tell  him  a  word  about  my  eyes,  nor 
look  after  a  patient,  but  kept  me  there  with  him  day  and  night 
for  ten  days.  Then  with  his  powerful  appliances  he  made  "his 
examination  in  less  than  five  minutes,  and  with  his  usual  con- 
fidence said:  "Your  eyes  proper  are  all  right,  my  boy;  a 
trifle  impaired  by  hard  study,  not  unusual  for  one  of  your 
years,  but  their  lower  lids  are  slightly  granulated."  I  quickly 
inquired.  "What  's  the  remedy?"  and  he  answered  :  "Anyone 
of  half  a  dozen  ;  but  probably  the  easiest  you  will  find  is  to  have 
Emma  [my  wife,  whom  he  had  known  since  childhood]  place 
a  cup  of  cold  tea,  just  the  kind  you  drink,  on  your  dresser  at 
home,  and  in  this  bathe  your  eyes  every  night  for  a  few  weeks, 
and  they  will  be  as  good  as  new;  and,  by  the  way,  you  would 
better  stop  smoking  until  after  your  evening  meal  during  this 
time."  These  directions  were  all  followed  and  restoration  was 
speedy  and  complete. 

We  drove  around  the  city  every  day;  Reub  talked  all  the 
time  on  every  conceivable  subject,  and  to  me  his  talks  were 
not  only  educational,  but  always  wonderfully  interesting.  One 
day  he  took  me  to  a  lunatic  asylum,  of  which  he  was  the  gen- 
eral physician  and  surgeon,  and  while  he  was  busy  with  di- 
rections to  his  subordinates,  my  attention  was  attracted  to  a 
noble,  intelligent-looking  specimen  of  physical  manhood  witSi 
a  heavy  suit  of  brown  hair,  clear  skin  and  eyes,  large  and  well- 
formed,  splendid  teeth,  and  apparently  about  thirty  years  old, 
whom  I  took  for  an  attendant.  I  was  somewhat  surprised 
when  this  man  approached  me  in  a  deferential  way,  said  he 
could  not  write,  and  asked  me  if  I  would  take  the  time  to  write 
for  him  a  short  note  to  his.  wife  and  say  that  he  would  certain- 
ly be  home  the  following  Monday.  I  was  in  the  act  of  com- 


392  RECOLLECTIONS 

plying  with  this  modest  request  when  Dr.  Vance  came  out  and 
hurriedly  said  it  was  high  time  we  were  off  to  meet  "that  other 
engagement."  So  I  excused  myself  to  my  new-found  friend 
and  joined  the  Doctor.  Once  in  the  carriage  again,  Dr.  Vance 
told  me  this  strange  story :  That  seventy-two  years  prior  to 
this  visit,  a  young  Ohio  man  left  his  bride  to  see  a  neighbor 
across  the  river  in  an  adjoining  county,  and  said  to  her  that 
he  would  certainly  be  home  "on  next  Monday" ;  that  upon  his 
return  trip  the  river  was  bank  full;  that  the  young  man  at- 
tempted to  swim  across  it,  when  his  skull  was  crushed  between 
two  logs;  that  he  was  thereby  rendered  hopelessly  insane,  had 
ever  since  been  a  harmless  lunatic  confined  in  an  asylum,  and 
was  then  past  ninety-three  years  of  age !  This  was  my  friend 
back  at  the  asylum.  In  all  the  years  he  had  preserved  his 
youthful  appearance,  but  his  constant  request  was  for  someone 
to  say  to  the  waiting  bride:  "I  will  certainly  be  home  next 
Monday." 

During  this  visit,  it  was  the  unvarying  custom  of  the  dear, 
deaf  grandmother  to  carry  the  three  children  up  to  the  nursery 
and  to  bed  at  nightfall.  Then  the  window  blinds  in  the  li- 
brary were  drawn,  the  telephone  receiver  hung  down,  the  door- 
bell was  muffled,  and  Reub  would  quietly  say :  "You  have  done 
nobly  in  your  profession,  my  boy ;  I  think  I  have  done*  fairly 
well  in  mine ;  and  now  there  is  nothing  too  good  for  you  and 
me."  At  his  request  a  trained  servant  brought  in  a  quart  of 
Benedictine  and  a  box  of  cigars  and  the  world  was  ours !  At 
midnight  we  always  went  up  town  to  a  famous  old  club-room, 
and  there  had  either  a  game  or  a  fish  dinner,  with  La  Toure 
Blanche  and  more  cigars.  As  I  write  now,  I  have  a  distinct 
recollection  that  at  four  o'clock  one  morning  at  his  home,  old 
Renb  stood  at  the  foot  of  my  bed  and  both  sung,  loudly  but 
not  too  well,  that  great  old  soldier  song,  "Marching  through 
Georgia/' 


A  FEW  OTHERS  WORTH  WHILE  303 

While  I  was  at  the  home  of  Dr.  Vance  in  Cleveland  once, 
he  had  a  call  to  go  to  a  cemetery  there  and  make  a  post-mortem 
examination  of  a  lady  who  had  been  in  her  grave  for  thirty 
days,  and  a  stranger  to  him,  whose  brothers  then  feared  she 
had  died  some  unnatural  death.  He  refused  to  go  unless  "a 
distinguished  physician,"  who  was  visiting  him  from  abroad, 
should  go  with  him ;  and  then  a  certain  local  surgeon  was  to  do 
the  actual  cutting.  His  terms  being  agreed  too,  we  drove  out ; 
I  as  "the  distinguished  physician  from  abroad."  The  local  man 
did  all  the  rough  work,  and  Dr.  Vance  and  I  talked,  while  he 
was  dictating  the  cutting  and  never  removed  his  gloves,  nor 
did  he  seem  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  matter  in  hand  in 
any  way.  At  the  close  of  the  examination,  Vance  broke  a  little 
twig  from  an  overhanging  tree,  with  it  scraped  up  and  down 
on  the  inner  lining  of  the  dead  woman's  stomach  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  said  to  me  in  his  apparently  careless  way: 
''Arsenical  poisoning,  administered  in  ice  cream."  We  drove 
home.  That  night  the  woman's  husband  left  the  city.  The 
chemical  analysis  later  revealed  the  fact  that  she  had  died  of 
arsenical  poison  and  the  proof  at  the  inquest  showed  that 
the  night  of  her  death  she  had  taken  ice  cream  with  her  hus- 
band at  a  city  cafe. 

En  route  East,  I  spent  a  day  with  Vance  after  the  death 
of  his  good  wife.  We  never  met  again.  He  drove  me  out  into 
the  country  and  there  the  day  was  passed.  From  the  hour  ot 
her  death  he  had  never  once  spoken  his  wife's  name  to  anyone ; 
but  he  talked  to  me  of  Annie  and  his  great  loss  all  day  long. 
He  had  a  private  library  of  over  8,000  volumes,  and  without 
reading  a  book  in  it  as  we  do,  he  knew  everything  that  was  in 
each.  His  wife  and  I  twice  arranged  these  books,  but  he  had 
no  order  or  system  about  him,  and  not  many  months  elapsed 
before  no  one  else  could  know  where  to  find  any  given  volume 
but  himself.  Just  as  I  was  leaving  his  house  to  catch  the  east- 


394  RECOLLECTIONS 

ward  train  that  evening,  the  Doctor  himself  answered  a  tele- 
phone call,  and  I  heard  him  say,  "No,  I  will  not  go ;  the  call 
and  an  operation  would  be  useless ;  the  boy  will  die."  He  ex- 
plained to  me  on  the  way  to  the  station  that  the  boy  in  ques- 
tion had  attempted  to  get  into  a  show,  under  a  circus  tent, 
when  an  attendant  had  hit  him  from  above  across  the  throat 
with  a  rubber  pipe;  how  that  rubber  had  severed  the  windpipe 
and  how  and  why  there  was  absolutely  no  hope.  The  follow- 
ing morning,  in  glancing  through  a  Buffalo  paper  en  route 
East,  I  saw  an  account  of  this  accident ;  how  the  blow  with  that 
rubber  pipe  had  twisted  and  broken  the  air-tubes  in  the  throat, 
filled  the  lungs,  and  caused  the  boy's  death  at  midnight. 

How,  why,  whence  came  the  many  marvelous  powers  of 
Dr.  Vance  as  an  eloquent  and  impressive  speaker,  writer,  and 
talker,  clear  and  accurate  thinker,  matchless  physician  and 
surgeon  ?  Spiritualists  account  for  it  all  upon  the  theory  that, 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  he  was  a  medium  and 
knew  and  did  all  things  because  of  that;  churchmen  say  he 
was  inspired  and  that  these  things  all  came  to-  him  direct  from 
God;  science  says — but  what 's  the  use?  since  "the  sum  of  all 
science  is — perhaps."  To  me  the  great  secret  is  locked  up,  the 
key  lost,  and  I  only  know  that  within  my  time  and  circle  there 
has  not  been  given  to  the  human  race  a  duplicate  of  Reuben 
Aleshire  Vance. 

EUGENE  F.  WARE,  Kansas  City,  Kansas.  In  addition  to 
his  high  standing  as  one  of  the  foremost  lawyers  of  the  West, 
Ware  has  written  many  exceedingly  clever  things  in  both  prose 
and  poetry,  but  that  which  is  widest  and  best  known  is  his  vol- 
ume of  verse  under  the  pen-name  of  "Ironquill."  Ever  since  I 
have  known  him,  he  has  had  the  habit  of  turning  aside  from 
the  law,  taking  his  pen  in  hand,  and  dashing  off  a  lot  of  good 
things  as  a  mere  recreation.  His  profession  has  brought  him 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  395 

gold  and  fame  galore,  but  his  theory  of  human  lite  seems  not 
un'.ike  that  of  an  old  slave  ferryman  I  knew  as  a  boy  in  the 
mountains  of  Viriginia.  Too  old  for  farm  work,  his  master 
permitted  this  negro  to  operate  the  ferry  across  Greenbrier 
River  and  retain  the  proceeds ;  his  ferriage  was  universally 
"a  fip  an'  a  bit,  suh"  (six  and  a  fourth  cents)  ;  but  one  day 
an  impecunious  mountaineer  came  along  and  urged  my  old 
friend  to  "set  him  across"  free  of  charge,  as  he  didn't  have  a 
cent.  The  old  darkey  looked  him  over,  shook  his  head,  and  re- 
fused, saying:  "As  you  have  no  money,  I  don't  see  as  it  makes 
a  dam  bit  of  difference  which  side  of  the  river  you  is  on." 

President  Roosevelt  never  did  a  wiser  act  than  when  he 
appointed  Ware  as  the  Commissioner  'of  Pensions,  and  it  was 
no  fault  of  "Ironquill''  that  holding  down  public  office  didn't 
suit  the  complexion  of  this  gifted  man,  who  was  cramped  in 
Washington,  "an'  kep  a-honin'  "  for  the  wide  prairies  and 
gentle  breezes  of  Kansas.  While  Ware  held  that  office,  and 
Leslie  M.  Shaw  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  Philander 
C.  Knox  Secretary  of  War,  the  daily  press  said  the  following 
lines  were  secretly  passed  from  one  to  the  other  of  these  grave 
and  good  statesmen;  and,  knowing  the  men,  if  a  row  is  ever 
raised  about  it,  I  would  advise  each  to  enter  a  plea  of  "guilty" 
and  save  both  time  and  trouble: 

"  'Go  ask  papa,'  the  maiden  said. 
The  young  man  knew  her  papa  was  dead; 
He  also  knew  the  life  he  had  led ; 
And  he  understood  her  when  she  said, 
'Go  ask  papa.' — Ware. 

'The  young  man  went  down  to  see  the  old  chap, 
Who  was  wheeling  coke  and  as  black  as  a  Jap. 
'Can  you  support  her?'  inquired  her  pap. 
'I  Ve  held  her  for  hours,'  he  said,  'on  my  lap.' 
Then  her  papa  fainted  away." — Shaw. 


396  RECOLLECTIONS 

"The  young  man  returned  right  up  through  the  cellar, 
And  found  the  young  lady  and  started  to  tell  her 
About  her  old  pap,  and  her  heart  it  grew  meller, 
And  she  said  to  the  youth,  'You  're  a  hell  of  a  feller.' 
And  so  they  were  married  that  day." — Knox. 

"WATTY"  (colored),  Fairmont,  West  Virginia.  To  my  let- 
ter of  eight  years  ago  now,  to  Uncle  Alfred  Meade  (heretofore 
printed),  I  now  add  a  word  and  give  one  incident  in  the  life 
of  another  boyhood  slave  friend  of  mine,  whom  I  mentioned — 
"Uncle  Watty."  I  never  heard  any  other  name  for  him,  but 
from  my  earliest  recollection  until  his  death  late  in  the  war, 
I  often  met  this  rare  specimen  of  black  manhood,  for  he  was 
owned  by  a  neighbor  of  my  father.  To  me  as  a  boy,  "Uncle 
Watty"  seemed  to  fill  to  the  limit  the  old-time  song  writer's 
description  of  "Nicodemus,  the  Slave,"  for  certainly  he  was 
not  only  "reckoned  as  part  of  the  salt  of  the  earth,"  but 

"His  great  heart  with  kindness  was  filled  to  the  brim ; 

He  obeyed  who  was  born  to  command, 
And  he  longed  for  the  dawning  which  then  was  so  dim — 
For  that  morning  which  now  was  at  hand." 

His  powerful  physical  frame,  attributes  of  body,  mind,  and 
soul,  loyalty  to  constituted  authority,  gentle  serenity,  yet 
fearsome  wrath  when  aroused,  great  common  sense,  and  his 
always  hope  for  freedom,  awed  and  impressed  whites  and 
blacks  alike. 

While  I  was  acting  as  our  batalion  commissary  in  the 
summer  of  1863,  I  alighted  from  an  early  morning  train  at  the 
Fairmont  station  and  was  walking  out  the  Pike  to  my  aunt 
Mitty  Hoult's,  just  west  of  that  town,  when  I  overtook  "Uncle 
Watty."  He  had  a  fiddle  under  his  arm,  which  he  had  played 
all  that  night  over  across  the  Monongahela  River,  near  Pala- 
tine, at  a  little  dance  for  the  darkies  at  Colonel  Haymond's,  and 
he  was  then  past  ninety-three.  At  that  time  President  Lincoln 


A    FEW   OTHERS   WORTH    WHILE  H'.iT 

had  promulgated  his  famous  Emancipation  Proclamation;  but 
this  affected  only  the  slaves  in  "those  States  and  parts  of  States" 
then  in  "actual  rebellion  against  the  United  States" ;  it  did  not 
apply  to  slaves  in  the  territory  embraced  within  the  then  form- 
ing State  of  West  Virginia,  nor  any  other  of  the  border  slave 
States,  and  it  was  then  the  belief  of  all  our  people  that  the 
Government  would  in  time  liberate  all  slaves  held  in  the  States 
not  then  in  open  rebellion  and  follow  Lincoln's  policy  by  com- 
pensating loyal  owners  at  least  for  the  loss  of  their  slave  prop- 
erty. So  firm  was  this  conviction  that  slaves  were  bought  and 
sold  after  this  talk,  and  I  recall  the  fact  that  the  last*  negro 
slave  I  ever  saw  on  the  auction-block  was  a  black  man,  past 
middle  age,  who  was  publicly  sold  in  front  of  the  court-house 
in  Clarksburg,  West  Virginia,  the  county  seat  next  to  my  own, 
in  October,  1863,  for  $288. 

"Uncle  Watty's"  horse  sense  enabled  him  to  grasp  and 
understand  his  exact  status  under  law  and  proclamation;  he 
knew  too  that  his  master  was  always  loyal  and  that  he  was 
still  a  slave.  Recognizing  the  outline  of  his  form,  I  quickened 
my  pace,  overtook  and  cheerily  greeted  him,  for  I  was  always 
fond  of  "Uncle  Watty."  As  we  walked  along  together,  our 
talk  naturally  turned  upon  the  war  and  then  upon  that  subject 
that  was  always  upon  his  mind — freedom.  Finally,  with  that 
confidence  and  want  of  understanding  which  the  young  often 
exhibit,  I  asked:  "Now,  what  the  devil  do  you  care  about 
freedom,  Uncle  Watty?  I  know  that  your  master  cheerfully 
furnishes  you  all  your  clothes,  you  and  your  family  have  a 
good  home  to  live  in,  nothing  to  do,  plenty  to  eat  and  wear, 
and  even  a  good  horse  and  buggy,  and  why  should  you  wish 
to  be  free  ?"  The  old  man  looked  at  me,  and  tears  were  in  his 
eyes  as  he  answered :  "Master  Harry,  you  don't  understand, 
you  can't ;  you  was  born  free  and  always  will  be  free ;  but  I 
tell  you  now  that  if  my  old  master  should  say  to  me  to-day, 


398  RECOLLECTIONS 

'Wat,  you  is  free,'  I  'd  jump  as  high,  as  your  haid,  honey." 
Then  he  told  me  that  in  a  dream  or  vision  in  the  cabin  one 
night  a  song  had  come  to  him  on  freedom,  and  this  he  offered 
to  sing  to  me.  So  we  two  stopped  in  the  middle  of  that  road, 
and  as  long  as  I  live  I  can  never  foret  the  way  that  grand  old 
black  man  looked  to  me  in  the  gray  of  that  early  summer  morn- 
ing as  he  sung  in  full,  rich  tones  the  song,  in  which,  as  nearly 
as  I  now  recall  them,  were  these  lines : 

"Although  our  skins  be  black  as  jet, 
Our  hair  be  curled,  our  noses  flat, 
Shall  we  for  this  no  freedom  have 
Until  we  find  it  in  the  grave ; 
And  never  drag  the  golden  chain, 
And  never  enjoy  ourselves  as  men? 
When  will  Jehovah  hear  our  cries, 
That  we  may  ever  with  him  rise?" 

At  the  stile  leading  into  Aunt  Mit's«  home  we  parted  at  day- 
dawn,  and  I  do  not  recollect  ever  seeing  "Uncle  Watty"  after- 
ward. The  freedom  for  which  his  great  soul  yearned  he  found 
in  the  grave  about  the  close  of  the  war ;  and  constitutional,  law- 
ful, and  unquestioned  freedom  came  to  all  American  slaves 
when  the  thirteenth  amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution 
was  declared  adopted  on  December  18,  1865. 

EDWARD  LINDSAY  WILLIAMS,  Washington,  D.  C.  Some- 
where there  may  live  a  more  honest,  reliable,  trustworthy, 
faithful  black  man,  but  I  have  never  met  him.  Edward  was 
born  a  slave,  a  LINDSAY,  in  his  boyhood  was  owned  by  my 
mother's  people  over  in  Virginia,  and  from  there  refugeed  to 
Washington  in  the  war,  where  his  stepfather  added  the  "Wil- 
liams." From  that  lowly  condition,  by  his  own  personal  ef- 
forts, he  has  come  up  to  his  present  position  and,  like  the  level- 
headed darkey  he  is,  still  knows  and  keeps  his  place  and  works. 
If  there  be  anything  in  his  line  he  cannot  do,  and  do  it  better 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH    WHILE  399 

than  most  men,  I  have  yet  to  hear  about  it.  His  years  of  free- 
dom have  been  mainly  spent  at  the  hotels  of  his  city  in  looking 
after  special  guests,  and  in  my  many  visits  there  I  always  stop 
at  the  house  where  he  is  employed,  no  matter  where,  and  there 
he  has  looked  after  and  cared  for  me  since  my  early  manhood. 
In  all  these  years  he  has  been  as  respectful  and  devoted  to  and 
fond  of  me  as  ever  slave  was  to  his  master,  and  this  affection 
is  returned,  for  I  was  reared  among  his  kind  and  know  and 
understand  them  as  no  stranger  can.  The  old  South  can  alone 
settle  the  negro  question,  for  the  North  knows  that  subject 
only  from  books. 

At  the  time  of  the  big  fire  at  Willard's  old  hotel  at  three 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  January  27,  1901,  I  was  asleep  in 
my  room  there.  Edward  knew  the  danger,  rushed  to  my  door, 
and  shouted :  "The  house  is  on  fire !  For  God's  sake,  get  up, 
and  get  out  quick!"  Not  comprehending  the  situation,  and 
only  half  awake,  I  answered :  "There  is  no  hurry  about  this, 
Edward ;  you  are  excited ;  the  walls  of  my  room  are  not  warm 
yet ;  but  I  '11  get  up."  So  I  arose  leisurely,  turned  on  the  light, 
and  was  just  getting  into  my  breeches,  when  this  wild-eyed 
boy  rushed  in,  yelled,  "For  God's  sake,  quick !''  and  before  one 
could  turn  around,  had  all  my  belongings  either  in  my  grip 
or  on  his  arm.  The  fire  had  broken  out  just  across  my  hall- 
way and  I  didn't  know  it,  nor  could  I  have  escaped  alone. 
With  my  arms  around  him,  we  got  into  the  hall,  but  escape  to 
our  left  \va  impossible,  for  all  in  that  direction  was  flame  and 
smoke.  So  through  the  blackness  of  darkness  and  chokim; 
smoke  we  two  stumbled  over  chairs  and  hassocks  in  the  parlor 
to  the  right,  making  our  way  to  the  F  Street  entrance.  We 
should  both  have  been  as  familiar  with  that  house  as  with  our 
own  fingers;  but  once  in  that  awful  smoke  Edward  stopped 
short,  and,  thinking  only  of  saving  me  and  never  once  of  him- 
self, said :  "Oh,  suh,  you  is  lost ;  gone  shore !"  "What  is  the 


400  RECOLLECTIONS 

trouble,  Edward?"  I  asked.  "I  don't  know  where  we're  at." 
he  said.  It  was  dark  as  a  dungeon,  and  while  I  knew  no  more 
about  it  than  he  did,  yet  in  a  reassuring  voice  I  said:  "Go 
on,  my  boy ;  we  will  yet  come  out  somewhere  all  right."  When 
at  last  we  emerged  under  the  electric  light  on  the  F  Street 
front,  the  first  thing  I  recall  was  his  black  head,  and  a  Greek 
god  in  ebony  never  looked  so  good  to  me.  Just  then  my  bare 
feet  struck  the  ice  and  the  snow,  for  the  mercury  was  low  anrt 
at  that  moment  my  clothing  scanty.  I  now  recall  a  convulsive 
rigor  and  then  a'.l  was  dark.  Just  how  he  got  me  across  the 
wide  street  and  into  the  Ebbitt  House  I  don't  recollect,  but 
the  first  thing  I  knew,  Edward  had  gotten  me  into  my  overcoat 
and  was  putting  on  my  shoes.  Of  my  appearance  at  that  hotel 
a  nimble-fingered  but  gracious  newspaper  man  printed :  "He 
stalked  in,  clothed  in  nightshirt,  breeches,  and  dazed  dignity." 
Scores  of  old  friends  called  to  congratulate  me  on  my  escape, 
when  in  fact  the  credit  was  Edward's ;  but  my  recovery  from 
the  shock  seemed  slow.  One  night  in  my  room  I  heard  some 
lady,  who  was  blessed  with  a  voice,  round,  full,  and  sweet, 
singing  songs  of  the  war.  I  wrote  and  sent  her  this  message 
by  Edward :  "Will  the  sweet  singer  whose  voice  has  just  now 
moved  a  sick  old  soldier  to  tears,  kindly  sing  for  him  the  'Star- 
Spangled  Banner'?"  She  paused  to  read  the  request,  and  then, 
to  my  joy,  the  house  was  filled  with  the  melody  of  that  grand 
old  national  air.  Still  ill,  my  medicine-man  looked  wise  and 
gave  elaborate  directions  as  to  what  I  must  and  must  not  eat, 
and  finally  Edward  loaded  me  into  a  sleeper  and  started  me 
homeward  over  the  C.  &  O.  I  tried  it,  but  couldn't  count  ten 
to  save  me.  The  first  connected  thought  to  filter  through  my 
brain  was  the  motto  for  a  thousand  years  back  of  my  Scottish 
clan,  "Vincere  vel  mori" — liberally  translated,  "We  conquer  or 
die."  Then  calling  the  porter,  up  about  Staunton,  I  had  him 
take  me  into  the  diner.  Here  I  ordered  and  absorbed  every- 


A   FEW   OTHERS  WORTH   WHILE  401 

thing  on  the  menu  from  soup  to  toothpicks,  went  to  bed,  ami 
slept  until  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning.  My  recovery  there- 
after was  rapid. 

In  1907  and  the  early  part  of  1908,  much  of  my  time  was 
spent  at  the  Riggs  House  in  Washington  on  an  Osage  Indian 
case  involving  over  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars,  and,  of 
course,  Edward  was  always  with  me.  Because  I  was  there 
alone  and  had  to  win,  for  the  all  of  my  clients  hung  on  the 
issue,  I  worked  earlier  and  later  than  was  good  for  me.  Often 
Edward  begged,  coaxed,  and  even  threatened  that  if  I  didn't 
stop  work  and  go  to  bed,  he  would  leave  me  to  my  fate ;  and 
one  morning  at  about  two  o'clock  I  recall  now  that  he  said: 
"No  livin'  man  can  stand  it,  suh;  why,  pore  as  I  am,  you 
couldn't  get  me  to  wuk  like  that  for  all  the  money  of  all  the 
Indians ;  no  suhee,  not  for  all  the  dollars  across  the  street  there 
in  the  Treasury."  Of  course  I  promised,  but  said:  "Edward, 
the  exact  truth  is,  you  would  not  leave  me  now  for  all  the 
money  of  earth."  The  poor  boy  turned  his  head  aside,  his  chin 
quivered,  he  was  crying !  He  thought  I  was  committing  cer- 
tain suicide,  and  he  came  near  being  right,  for  on  February 
12,  1908,  came  my  breakdown  from  that  work;  but  I  won.  In 
the  drawing-room  of  a  Pullman  sleeper,  Edward  then  brought 
me  hcme,  and  day  and  night  remained  in  my  room  here  and 
nursed  and  looked  after  me  for  over  two  weeks ;  and  when 
not  watching  my  every  symptom  like  a  hawk,  that  boy  was  up 
in  his  room  on  the  third  floor  praying  for  my  recovery.  Then 
the  wide  differences  between  youth  and  age  came  into  evidence ; 
I  no  longer  sprang  back  into  place ;  recovery  was  long  coming. 
But  the  climatic  conditions  found  in  Oklahoma,  in  the  Ozark 
Mountains  of  Missouri,  and  down  in  New  Mexico  afforded 
relief;  and  when  Washington  was  at  last  revisited  in  Decem- 
ber, and  again  in  this  year,  Edward's  joy  knew  no  bounds,  for 
he  saw  his  life-long  friend  was  again  himself. 


402  RECOLLECTIONS 

THOMAS  ADAMS  WITTEN,  Kansas  Gity,  Missouri:  Born 
at  the  little  town  of  Beckley,  Raleigh  County,  West  Virginia, 
already  made  famous  as  the  birthplace  of  "Ben  Bolt"and  "The 
Blue  Alsatian  Mountains,"  the  earliest  recollections  of  our 
Tom  were  enlivened  by  the  less  poetic  rattle  of  musketry,  for 
the  big  war  was  on,  his  father  was  a  surgeon  in  the  Confed- 
erate Army  and  there  was  much  marching,  and  fighting  too, 
in  the  '6o's,  all  about  that  town,  by  both  Federal  and  Confed- 
erate troops. 

Just  where  or  how  this  clear-headed  man  became  a  scholar 
and  a  lawyer  are  not  now  so  material  as  are  the  facts  that  he  is 
to-day  recognized  as  being  in  the  front  rank  in  both  scholarship 
and  legal  ability.  For  awhile  he  was  the  head  of  the  State 
Normal  School  at  Huntington,  West  Virginia,  as  a  teacher, 
and  commenced  the  practice  of  law  at  Trenton,  Missouri,  but 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  now  has  hammered  law  and  fact 
into  courts  and  juries  here  at  Kansas  City  with  masterful 
clearness,  skill,  earnestness,  and  success. 

In  the  meantime  he  has  read  much  good  stuff  and  thought 
a  lot;  has  written  many  widely  read  monographs,  the  best  of 
which,  in  my  judgment,  were  his  paper  read  before  the  Mis- 
souri Bar  Association  on  "The  Public  Health"  and  his  "Mun- 
kacsy's  Christ  on  Calvary"  before  our  Greenwood  Club  in 
1900.  At  rare  intervals  he  has  set  his  eye  on  a  seat  on  the 
bench  or  in  the  halls  of  Congress  in  times  past ;  but  not  for 
long,  and  is  now  trying  hard  to  live  it  down.  Those  who  like 
to  have  him  around,  and  that  means  everybody  who  knows 
him,  try  to  keep  him  in  the  law  line  and  have  hopes  of  winning 
out ;  but  despite  them  and  his  own  better  judgment,  every  now 
and  then  he  will  break  into  the  political  game  or  browse  around 
in  the  literary  field,  because  his  fancy  turns  that  way. 

In  July,  1899,  I  submitted  his  case  to  Elbert  Hubbard  in 
a  letter,  true  as  gospel  in  all  things,  in  this  way :  "Our  mutual 


A   FEW   OTHERS   WORTH   WHILE  403 

friend,  Tom  Witten,  as  you  know,  sometimes  mixes  his  law 
and  poetry  and  literature  in  a  most  diabolical  fashion,  and  in 
his  own  royal  way  came  out  to  my  house  on  Beacon  Hill  the 
other  evening  with  a  party  of  ladies.  He  at  once  proceeded 
to  smoke  my  cigars,  sing  my  old  songs,  and  drink  my  old 
whisky,  and  then,  while  the  ladies  were  at  the  piano  singing — 
for  they  can  sing,  while  Tom  and  I  simply  howl — in  hot  blood 
sat  down  and  on  the  spur  of  the  inspirational  moment  reeled  off 
the  following,  dedicated  as  a  toast  to  myself: 

'To  THE  SAGE  OF  BEACON  HILL:    A  TOAST. 

'Here  's  to  the  Sage  of  Beacon  Hill ! 
Here  's  to  his  music  and  here  's  to  his  quill ! 
For  he  writes  like  an  angel,  sings  like  a  bird, 
And  tells  the  best  stories  Bohemia  has  heard. 
Here  's  to  his  pipe  and  here  's  to  his  mug, 
And  here's  to  the  Bourbon  that  flows  from  his  jug!' 

Now,  to  your  superior  judgment  in  matters  of  such  grave 
concern,  I  submit  this  proposition :  What  should  be  the  pen- 
alty— death,  banishment  or  denial  of  his  right  to  the  contents 
of  that  jug?" 

Fra  Elbertus  at  once  answered,  suggesting  that  I  send 
Tom  "on  here  to  East  Aurora  for  a  few  months  and  we  will 
have  him  help  AH  Baba."  This  in  my  reply  I  promised  to  do 
as  soon  as  the  weather  permitted,  and  added :  "Fur  Kri  saik, 
deal  gently  with  Tom.  He  is  worth  saving." 

Witten's  subsequent  marriage,  his  travels  in  this  country 
and  in  Europe  since,  together  with  his  recognized  ability  as 
student,  thinker,  and  lawyer,  have  of  late  kept  him  reasonably 
busy ;  but  occasionally  he  still  breaks  forth  in  verse  or  book. 


Appendix. 


Yielding  again  to  importunities  which  I  have  never  learned 
to  resist,  I  here  reprint  a  few  of  the  many  things  I  have  said 
in  the  past : 

SLAVERY,  EGYPTIAN  AND  AMERICAN,  A  COMPARISON  ;  MOSES 
AND  LINCOLN,  A  PARALLEL. 

[Reprint  from  Western  Veteran,  February,  1897.] 
A  Tribute  to  Lincoln's  Memory. 

Judge  H.  C.  McDougal  delivered  an  address  of  excep- 
tional interest  at  the  celebration  of  the  eighty-eighth  anni- 
versary of  the  birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  held  in  Strope's  Hall, 
corner  of  Ninth  and  Wyandotte  streets,  Kansas  City,  Mo., 
Friday  night,  February  12,  1897.  Judge  McDougal  treated 
Lincoln  from  a  new  standpoint  in  many  ways.  He  compared 
Egyptian  and  American  slavery,  and  was  particularly  inter- 
esting as  considering  Moses  the  prototype  of  the  great  Eman- 
cipator. The  address,  is  given  in  full  below : 

Mr.  Chairman,  Comrades,  and  1'riends: 

I  am  glad  to  see  present  to-night,  honoring  the  day  we 
celebrate,  so  many  ladies.  Every  soldier  recalls  the  fact  that 
the  love  of  mother,  sister,  wife,  or  sweetheart  was  the  highest 
incentive  to  duty  to  country  and  flag,  in  field  and  on  the  march, 

(405) 


496  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  that  their  memory  was  such  an  inspiration  as  caused  the 
weary,  flagging  step  to  quicken  and  the  pulse  to  beat  faster; 
and  so  it  seems  good  to  have  them  with  us  again  to-night. 

I  am  glad,  too,  to  see  so  many  representative  colored  men 
here ;  for  if  there  be  one  day  in  the  year  when  the  colored  peo- 
ple of  America  should  cease  from  their  labor  and  devote  the 
entire  day  to  actual  thanksgiving  and  actual  prayer,  that  day 
is  the  birthday  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

It  is  pleasant  also  to  see  among  the  audience  a  goodly 
number  of  old  Confederate  soldiers.  This  is  an  object-lesson 
in  patriotism.  It  shows  to  the  world  what  soldiers  have  known 
for  a  generation — namely,  that  with  soldiers  the  war  closed 
at  Appomatox  and  that  since  that  day  there  has  been  peace 
between  the  Blue  and  Gray.  Politicians  alone  have  kept  up 
sectional  strife.  Soldiers  of  both  armies  have  echoed  and 
re-echoed  the  immortal  sentiment,  "Let  us  have  peace."  I  want 
to  say  to  you  ex-Confederates  that  if  the  king  of  terrors  and 
his  hosts  should  take  form  and  shape  so  that  soldiers  might 
meet  him  in  open  field  and  strive  for  the  mastery,  then  that 
the  old  Union  soldiers  of  Missouri  would  join  the  old  Con- 
federates, touch  elbows  and  keep  step  with  them  and  march 
down  south  of  this  city  and  do  battle  with  the  hosts  of  death, 
rescue  from  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  where  he  is 
now  making  his  last  fight,  and  restore  to  family,  friends,  and 
country  that  gallant,  chivalric,  courageous,  and  courteous  gen- 
tleman and  soldier  of  the  old  school — glorious  old  Jo  Shelby. 
Our  prayers  go  up  with  yours,  and  we  earnestly  hope,  as  you 
do,  that  your  old  commander  may  yet  be  rescued  from  .the 
jaws  of  death. 

I  am  not  here,  however,  to  discuss  either  of  these  three 
interesting  subjects,  but  to  direct  your  thought  to  a  compari- 
son between  Egyptian  and  American  slavery  and  point  out  the 
parallel  in  the  lives  of  Moses  and  Lincoln.  The  scene  which 


MOSES   AND   LINCOLN  407 

relates  to  Egyptian  slavery  opens  nearly  two  thousand  years 
before  Christ. 

Pharaoh  had  made  Joseph  ruler  over  all  the  land  of 
Egypt;  tney  had  there  passed  through  their  seven  years  of 
plenty  and  were  in  their  seven  years  of  famine,  "and  the  famine 
was  over  all  the  face  of  the  earth" ;  Jacob's  other  sons  had  been 
down  into  Egypt  and  bought  corn  of  Joseph — when,  at  the 
invitation  of  Pharaoh,  conveyed  through  Joseph,  Jacob  and 
his  family  went  down  to  the  land  of  Goshen  in  Egypt,  "and 
all  the  souls  of  the  house  of  Jacob,  which  came  into  Egypt, 
were  three  score  and  ten." 

All  went  well  until  after  the  death  of  Jacob  and  of 
Joseph;  "the  children  of  Israel  were  fruitful  and  increased 
abundantly  and  multiplied  and  waxed  exceeding  mighty;  and 
the  land  was  filled  with  them.  Now  there  arose  up  a  new  king 
over  Egypt,  which  knew  not  Joseph."  This  "new  king"  at  once 
commenced  and  vigorously  prosecuted  systematic  efforts  to 
oppress  and  decrease  the  numbers  and  powers  of  the  Israelites, 
and  their  condition  soon  became  nothing  short  of  abject  slav- 
ery. "And  they  made  their  lives  bitter  with  hard  bondage,  in 
mortar  and  in  brick,  and  in  all  manner  of  service  in  the  field ; 
all  their  service,  wherein  they  were  made  to  serve,  was  with 
rigor."  This  oppression  continued  up  to  the  time  of  Moses. 

"Now  the  sojourning  of  the  children  of  Israel,  who 
dwelt  in  Egypt,  was  four  hundred  and  thirty  years."  The 
exact  date  of  their  exodus  is  uncertain,  but  it  is  probable  that 
it  began  about  fifteen  hundred  years  before  Christ.  Notwith- 
standing Egyptian  oppression,  the  Israelites  became  "as  the 
stars  of  heaven  for  multitude,"  for  the  seventy  who  originally 
went  there  had  increased  to  "about  six  hundred  thousand  on 
foot  that  were  men,  besides  children,"  at  the  time  Moses  led 
them  over  into  the  wilderness.  The  first  census  taken  in  the 
wilderness  shows  that  "from  twenty  years  old  and  upwards,  all 


408  RECOLLECTIONS 

that  were  able  to  go  forth  to  war  in  Israel  *  *  were  six  hun- 
dred thousand  and  three  thousand  and  five  hundred  and  fifty." 
This  did  not  include  the  Levites,  who  had  charge  of  the  Taber- 
nacle, and  whose  numbers  aggregated  over  twenty-two  thous- 
and males  above  one  year  old;  nor  did  it  include  the  women. 
With  all  included,  there  must  have  been  over  two  millions  of 
the  children  of  Israel  that  followed  their  great  leader  out  of 
Egypt  and  into  the  wilderness.  There  "they  did  eat  manna 
forty  years,  *  *  *  until  they  came  to  the  borders  of  the  land 
of  Canaan."  Yet  Moses  says  to  them:  "Thy  raiment  waxed 
not  old  upon  thee,  neither  did  thy  foot  swell  these  forty  years." 
But  after  centuries  of  slavery,  and  after  their  long  so- 
journ of  forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  the  children  of  Israel 
finally  dwelt  in  safety  in  the  promised  land — the  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey.  Not  so  with  their  great  leader:  meelc, 
humble,  "slow  of  speech  and  of  a  slow  tongue"  he  was,  yet  to 
me,  "take  him  for  all  in  all/'  Moses  stands  out  as  the  most  rich- 
ly endowed  intellectual  giant  in  all  history,  sacred  and  pro- 
fane. The  characters  of  Julius  Caesar  and  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte and  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant  challenge  one's  highest  admira- 
tion; my  own  admiration,  veneration,  and  love  for  the  char- 
acters of  Washington  and  Lincoln  are  boundless,  yet  to  me  it 
seems  that  there  has  not  been  so  many-sided  a  man  as  Moses : 
a  law-giver,  a  poet,  a  physician,  a  magician,  a  statesman ;  a 
man  of  rare  wisdom,  sublime  imagination,  vast  learning,  splen- 
did courage  and  sagacity ;  a  leader  of  men,  who  knew  how  to 
control  and  play  upon  the  hearts  of  his  people,  and  who  was 
marvelously  successful  in  his  management  of  his  two  millions 
of  unruly,  ignorant,  vicious,  and  superstitious  ex-slaves — the 
world  has  never  seen  his  like.  Faithful  in  all  things,  the 
crowning  glory  of  success  was  his.  Yet  he  was  not  permitted 
to  enter  into  the  promised  land,  nor  see  nor  feel  nor  taste  the 
sweet  fruit  of  his  magnificent  leadership  of  more  than  forty 


MOSES   AND  LINCOLN  409 

years.  In  the  hour  of  his  triumph  he  went  up  into  the  "moun- 
tain of  Nebo,  to  the  top  of  Pisgah" ;  there  the  Lord  shewed 
him  all  the  land  of  Canaan — valley  and  plain,  mountain  and 
palm  tree,  even  unto  the  utmost  sea — and  there,  alone  with 
God  and  the  mountain,  and  pointing  out  all  the  promised  land, 
the  Lord  whom  he  had  always  obeyed  thus  said  unto  Moses: 
"I  have  caused  thee  to  see  it  with  thine  eyes,  but  thou  shalt 
not  go  over  thither."  "So  Moses,  the  servant  of  the  Lord,  died 
there  in  the  land  of  Moab,  according  to  the  word  of  the  Lord. 
And  he  buried  him  in  a  valley  in  the  land  of  Moab  over 
against  Bethpeor,  but  no  man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre  unto 
this  day." 

"And  had  he  not  high  honor? 

The  hillside  for  his  pall, 
To  lie  in  state  while  angels  wait, 

With  stars  for  tapers  tall ; 
And  the  dark  rock  pines,  like  tossing  plumes, 

Over  his  bier  to  wave ; 
And  God's  own  hand,  in  that  lonely  land, 

To  lay  him  in  the  grave." 

"And  Moses  was  an  hundred  and  twenty  years  old  when  he 
died;  his  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force  abated.  *  *  * 
And  there  arose  not  a  prophet  since  in.  Israel  like  unto  Moses, 
whom  the  Lord  knew  face  to  face." 

I  know  not  in  all  history  a  death  and  burial  so  pathetic 
as  this,  and  to  me  there  has  been  the  death  of  but  one  great 
and  heroic  leader  that  equals  in  pathos  the  death  of  Moses. 

EGYPTIAN  AND  AMERICAN  SLAVERY  COMPARED. 

In  1619  a  Dutch  ship  landed  at  Jamestown,  in  Virginia, 
twenty  negro  slaves.  This  was  the  beginning  of  negro  slavery 


410  RECOLLECTIONS 

on  American  soil.  Other  importations  followed,  and  the  slave 
trade  soon  became  more  profitable  than  any  other.  This  trade 
was  prohibited  by  law  as  early  as  1808,  and  in  1820  Congress 
enacted  a  law  declaring  it  piracy ;  but  so  enormous  were  the 
profits  that  the  importation  of  negro  slaves  did  not  cease  until 
the  outbreak  of  our  Civil  War,  and  under  this  act  of  Congress 
there  was  never  but  a  single  conviction  and  execution — that 
of  Gordon  in  November,  1861. 

The  American  slave-owner  did  not  demand  that  his 
slaves  make  "bricks  without  straw" ;  nor  yet  that  among  them 
the  man-child  be  killed  at  his  birth,  as  did  his  predecessor,  the 
Egyptian  taskmaster;  but,  on  the  contrary,  self-interest,  if  not 
sentiment,  led,  in  the  main,  to  the  fair  and  humane  treatment 
of  American  slaves,  so  that  their  condition  was  infinitely  above 
and  far  better,  and  their  tasks  and  burdens  less  galling,  than 
those  of  the  slaves  of  Egypt.  Still,  America  held  her  bond- 
men as  had  Egypt,  and  her  slaves  longed  for  freedom  as  did 
the  Israelites  of  old. 

Like  their  predecessors  of  that  far-away  period,  Ameri- 
can slaves,  by  importation  and  by  natural  increase,  "multiplied 
and  waxed  very  mighty"  in  numbers ;  for,  in  the  two  hundred 
and  thirty-six  years  which  intervened  between  1619  and  1865, 
their  numbers  had  increased  from  the  twenty  landed  at  James- 
town to  more  than  four  millions. 

But  at  last,  in  the  fullness  of  time  and  providence  of 
God,  the  hour  was  at  hand  when  the  bondmen  in  that  rich 
land  watered  by  the  Nile  should  be  free,  as  afterwards  it  came 
when  the  bondmen  in  that  richer  land  watered  by  the  Missis- 
sippi should  be  free.  For  the  deliverance  of  the  one,  the  Lord 
God — the  beginning  and  the  end  of  human  justice — raised  up 
Moses.  For  the  deliverance  of  the  other,  the  same  God,  three 
thousand  years  later,  raised  up  Abraham  Lincoln. 


MOSES  AND  LINCOL.N  411 

It  is  true  that  in  liberating  America's  bondmen  our 
Southland  was  sorely  scourged.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
her  bravest  and  best  sons  gave  up  their  lives  for  a  cause  which 
from  infancy  they  had  been  taught  to  believe,  and  did  believe, 
was  right.  Thousands  of  her  homes  went  to  ashes  in  the  red 
fires  of  war;  yet  the  scourges  of  the  South  were  as  nothing 
in  comparison  with  those  ol  old  Egypt.  For  there,  before 
Pharaoh  would  consent  that  the  bond  should  go  free,  the  Lord 
turned  into  blood  all  the  waters  of  Egypt;  was  compelled  to, 
and  did,  send  the  plagues  of  frogs,  of  lice,  of  flies,  and  of  mur- 
rain of  beasts,  and  of  boils  and  blains,  of  hail,  locusts,  and 
darkness  ;  and  finally  caused  to  be  slain,  throughout  all  the  land, 
the  first-born  of  both  man  and  beast  so  that  "there  was  a  great 
cry  in  Egypt,  for  there  was  not  a  house  where  there  was  not 
one  dead."  More  than  this,  when  the  bondmen  of  Egypt  were 
on  their  way  to  the  promised  land,  they  were  pursued  by 
Pharaoh  and  his  hosts ;  Moses  parted  the  waters,  he  and!  his 
followers  passed  over  dry  shod;  but  when  the  Egyptians  got 
well  into  the  sea,  "the  waters  returned,  and  covered  their 
chariots  and  their  horsemen  and  all  the  host  of  Pharaoh  that 
came  into  the  sea  after  them ;  and  there  remained  not  so  much 
as  one  of  them,  *  *  *  and  Israel  saw  the  Egyptians  dead  upon 
the  sea-shore." 

Our  Southland,  thank  heaven,  neither  saw  nor  felt  any 
of  these  scourges,  nor  was  the  remnant  of  that  gallant  banJ 
of  American  soldiers  that  forever  grounded  arms  and  furled 
flag  at  Appomatox  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  a  waste  of  waters. 
Nor  were  American  slaves,  after  their  liberation,  forced  to 
wander  in  a  wilderness  for  forty  long,  dreary  years ;  nor  had 
they  cause  to  murmur  and  weep  and  say,  as  did  the  bondmen 
of  Egypt,  "Who  shall  give  us  flesh  to  eat  ?  We  remember  the 
fish,  which  we  did  eat  in  Egypt  freely :  the  cucumbers,  and  the 


412  RECOLLECTIONS 

melons,  and  the  leeks,  and  the  onions,  and  the  garlic ;  but  now 
our  soul  is  dried  away." 

On  the  contrary,  the  Southland  soldier  returned  in  peace 
to  his  home,  taking  his  horses — "they  will  need  them  for  the 
spring  plowing,"  said  our  great-hearted  Grant.  The  American 
slave,  too,  remained  in  the  rich  Egypt  in  which  he  was  born — 
the  soft,  sensuous,  flower-laden,  melon-producing  land  of 
Dixie — where,  at  first  in  the  service  of  his  old  master,  and 
later  for  himself,  he  continued  to  hoe  the  cotton,  the  corn,  and 
the  cane,  until  raised  to  the  full  dignity  of  American  citizen- 
ship in  the  land  of  his  birth.  There  most  of  them  remain,  even 
unto  this  day.  Loyal  to  old  master  and  old  "missus"  in  the 
chains  of  slavery  and  in  freedom,  in  war  and  in  peace, — for  be 
it  remembered  to  their  everlasting  honor,  that  no  negro  slave 
of  America  ever  betrayed  the  trust  or  offered  personal  violence 
to  master  or  mistress — to  me,  born  and  reared  among  them  as 
I  was,  they  will  ever  be  remembered  as  the  kindest  and  the 
most  faithful  of  the  creatures  of  God.  In  peace  and  harmony 
they  dwell  to-day  among  those  who  but  a  third  of  a  century 
ago  owned  their  bodies — held  them  as  mere  chattels. 

LINCOLN  THE  LIBERATOR. 

To  whom  are  the  American  slaves  of  a  generation  ago 
indebted  for  their  freedom?  First,  to  that  tenderest,  ablest, 
and  best  of  American  statesmen — Abraham  Lincoln ;  next,  to 
the  great  commanders — Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Thomas, 
Logan,  and  Blair,  and  a  host  of  other  officers;  but  most  of  all 
to  the  boys  who  wore  the  blue — who  went  down  into  their 
land  of  Egypt  to  save  the  Union ;  who  for  four  long  years, 
through  summer's  heat  and  winter's  snow,  over  mountain  and 
plain,  through  cotton-field  and  cane-brake,  followed  the  flag 
and  fought  for  the  right.  The  bones  of  a  majority  of  these 
boys  of  a  third  of  a  century  ago  are  now  mouldering  back  to 


MOSES  AND  LINCOLN  413 

dust  again  in  the  land  they  saved — "theirs  the  cross,  ours  the 
crown."  Remember  that  under  Lincoln  these  boys  had  their 
"wilderness"  ;  that  when  they  returned  to  "God's  country"  they 
not  only  brought  back  America's  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  the 
Constitution,  with  every  line  and  word  in  its  old  place  and  in 
full  force  and  effect;  from  that  "abomination  of  desolation," 
the  chaos  of  secession,  rescued  and  brought  back  with  them 
every  one  of  the  eleven  stars  that  had  fallen  from  the  field  of 
blue  in  their  country's  flag  and  restored  each  star  to  its  old 
place,  where,  firm  as  a  fixed  star  in  heaven,  each  again  glit- 
tered to  the  name  of  a  redeemed  and  restored  State  in  the 
American  Union ;  but  brought  back  with  them  and  proudly 
threw  upon  the  altar  of  their  beloved  country  the  shackles  of 
four  millions  of  human  beings. 

When  that  grand  old  army  that  had  saved  the  Union 
and  liberated  America 's  bondmen,  "  like  a  grand,  majestic  sea," 
swept  up  from  tne  Southland  and  through  the  nation's  capital 
on  that  memorable  review  of  May,  1865,  beneath  each  blouse 
of  blue  beat  a  heart  filled  with  conflicting  emotions  of  joy  and 
sorrow :  Joy  because  the  Union  was  saved,  the  flow  of  Amer- 
ican blood  had  ceased,  the  slaves  were  free,  and  "home,  sweet 
home"  was  near  at  hand ;  sorrow  because  of  comrades  who 
slept  the  sleep  that  knows  no  waking  in  that  soft  clime  beneath 
Southern  skies,  and  sorrow  that  the  hour  of  parting  with  com- 
panions in  arms  had  come.  Within  every  heart,  too,  was  a 
feeling  of  profound  respect  for  the  courage  and  valor  of  those 
who  had  fought  so  long  and  so  well  for  "the  lost  cause."  On 
an  hundred  battle-fields  the  boys  in  gray  had  demonstrated  the 
highest  qualities  of  American  soldiers,  to  meet  and  defeat 
whom  had  been  both  honorable  and  glorious.  Four  years  be- 
fore, to  the  sound  of  bugh,  fife,  and  drum,  in  uniforms  bright, 
with  plumes  and  banners  flying,  and  hearts  beating  with  hope 
and  courage  high,  the  boys  in  gray  had  proudly  marched  away 


414  RECOLLECTIONS 

from  homes  filled  with  music  and  song  and  perfume  of  flowers ; 
now,  in  the  unutterable  sadness,  sorrow,  and  humiliation  of 
defeat,  they  were  tramping  their  weary  way  back  to  those 
homes  in  the  land  of  pine  and  palm  tree,  cotton  and  cane, 
where  the  plantation  song  of  the  darky  and  the  tumming  of 
the  old  banjo  now  were  hushed  and  the  mournful  note  of  the 
whip-poor-will  and  the  sad,  sweet  tones  of  the  mocking-bird 
made  the  only  music,  and  even  this  to  them  sounded  like  the 
Dead  March  in  Saul.  What  now  to  them  were  the  voices 
of  singing  men  and  of  singing  women  and  of  singing  birds, 
for  the  ringing  voices  of  Jeb  Stuart,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,, 
and  Stonewall  Jackson  were  hushed  in  death  ;  nevermore  would 
they  hear  the  grave,  dignified  command  of  their  great  chief- 
tain, Robert  E.  Lee ;  the  cause  for  which  they  had  endured  so 
much  was  lost.  For  them  the  days  went  by  "like  a  shadow 
o'er  the  heart,"  and  what  lay  before  them  under  the  new  order 
of  things  no  man  dared  to  guess.  The  boys  who  in  that  grand 
review  still  kept  step  to  the  majestic  music  of  the  Union 
thought  of  all  this — the  generous  Blue  forgave  the  errors  of, 
and  felt  pity  for  the  vanquished  Gray — he  was  a  foe  no  longer, 
but  an  American  citizen  and  in  the  land  of  his  fathers. 

But  above  all,  in  that  grand  review  every  eye  was  filled 
with  unshed  tears,  every  heart  bowed  down,  because  of  the 
untimely  death  of  him  to  whose  call  they  had  responded: 
"We  're  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand 
more."  Lincoln  was  not  there  to  receive  and  welcome  and  re- 
view the  conquering  heroes  whose  every  movement  by  day  and 
by  night,  with  a  father's  loving  tenderness,  he  had  so  anxious- 
ly watched  for  four  long  years. 

As  the  bondmen  of  Egypt  after  their  liberation  often 
needed  the  wise  head  and  generous  heart  of  Moses,  so  the 
bondmen  of  America  sorely  needed  the  wise  head  and  great 
heart  of  their  Emancipator;  the  boys  in  blue  and  the  boys  in- 


MOSES  AND  LINCOLN  415 

gray,  for  their  protection  against  the  wiles  of  scheming  politi- 
cians North  and  South,  also  needed  Lincoln ;  yet  this  boon  was 
denied  them ;  for  the  one  man  who  could  and  no  doubt  would 
have  proven  a  blessing  and  a  benediction  to  bondmen,  Blue 
and  Gray  alike,  had  been  called  to  his  reward.  And  as  in  the 
olden  time  "the  children  of  Israel  wept  for  Moses  in  the  land 
of  Moab,"  so  the  newly  made  freedmen,  as  well  as  the  soldiers 
of  both  armies,  mourned  and  wept  for  Lincoln. 

MOSES  AND  LINCOLN — THE  PARALLEL. 

Some  of  those  who  should  have  been  most  loyal,  earnest, 
and  zealous  in  their  support  of  Moses  often  murmured,  com- 
plained, and  even  revolted  against  the  great  Law-giver.  So 
with  Lincoln.  "In  that  fierce  light  which  beats  upon  a  throne." 
the  central  figure  of  the  war — the  strongest  and  the  noblest 
man  whose  shadow  the  sweet  sunshine  of  heaven  ever  cast 
upon  Mother  Earth — stood  amid  a  shower  of  envious  shafts, 
heard  the  cruel  criticism  and  the  curses  of  enemies  North  and 
South,  at  home  and  abroad,  yet  through  it  all  remained  he, 
like  a  god  of  old,  calm,  unmoved,  and  immovable. 

"I  saw  a  pine  in  Italy 
That  cast  its  shadow  athwart  a  cataract. 
The  pine  stood  firm, 
The  cataract  shook  the  shadow." 

Our  war  was  a  mighty  cataract  poured  out  of  heaven  in 
answer  to  the  human  cry  for  justice  and  freedom,  its  waters 
crimsoned  with  a  nation's  blood  of  atonement;  the  colossal 
shadow  of  Lincoln  was  cast  athwart  its  every  part;  in  public 
opinion  he  sometimes  seemed  to  waver,  yet  now  we  know  that 
however  vacillating  others,  through  all  its  four  years  of  appall- 
ing seethe  and  roar  and  crash,  Lincoln  himself  swerved  neither 


416  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  the  right  nor  the  left,  but,  like  the  poet's  pine,  always  stood 
firm.  He  knew  what  he  was  doing  and  why.  His  enemies  did 
not  know,  could  not  understand.  The  only  American  who, 
upon  the  instant,  comprehended  every  proposition  relating  to 
war  and  freedom,  he  was  long  reviled  for  his  silence  and  inac- 
tion ;  yet  when,  at  the  right  moment,  through  his  immortal 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  he  did  speak,  the  world  heard ; 
and  no  words  spoken  in  all  history  have  proven  so  potential 
for  good,  or  have  so  calmed  the  waters  of  discontent,  since 
upon  the  troubled  Sea  of  Galilee  the  Master  stood  forth  and 
said :  "Peace,  be  still."  Peace,  the  redeemed  and  restored 
Union  and  the  freedom  of  American  bondmen  were  from  that 
moment  assured.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  did  the  world  fully 
realize  that  at  the  helm  of  our  ship  of  state,  rocked  and  tossed 
as  it  was  upon  the  crimson  sea  of  civil  war,  there  stood  an 
earnest,  sad-faced  man,  in  leadership  the  peer  of  Moses  and 
in  goodness  and  mercy  and  justice  almost  the  equal  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth. 

Like  Moses,  Lincoln  was  permitted  to  view  the  promised 
land.  Lee  had  surrendered,  the  war  was  nearing  its  close ; 
with  his  prophetic  eye  he  saw  in  the  near  future  the  old  flag 
floating  free  from  sea  to  sea ;  saw  the  Union  saved  and  re- 
stored ;  saw  the  shackles  of  every  American  slave  lying  broken 
at  his  feet;  but  the  splendid  army  of  Johnston  and  the  army 
of  the  Southwest  were  still  in  the  field ;  "the  bonny  blue  flag" 
was  still  borne  aloft,  and  still  in  defiance  kissed  soft,  balmy 
breezes  under  Southern  skies.  Hence,  like  Moses,  Lincoln 
was  not  permitted  to  set  foot  in  that  land  of  perfect  freedom 
for  which  his  sad  soul  yearned.  For  each  it  was  only  a  lit- 
tle way  off — just  across  the  river — the  Jordan  for  Moses  and 
the  Potomac  for  Lincoln ;  yet  the  hand  of  God  touched  the 
one,  the  hand  of  a  madman  the  other,  and  the  two  great  Eman- 
cipators stood  face  to  face  in  the  presence  of  the  God  of  Abra- 


Moses   AND   LINCOLN  417 

ham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob — the  same  God  that  looked  down  with 
pity  upon  bondmen  of  the  Nile  and  the  Mississippi  and  said: 
"They  shall  be  free." 

As  under  that  high  resolve,  with  Moses  for  leader  and 
"the  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  the  pillar  of  fire  by  night"  for 
guide,  the  bondmen  of  Egypt  at  last  emerged  from  their  dark- 
ness into  the  light  of  freedom ;  so  with  Lincoln  for  leader  and 
the  starry  banner  of  the  Union  for  guide,  the  long  night  of 
slavery  at  last  gave  way  to  freedom's  light,  and,  bewildered 
with  joyous  wonder,  the  bondmen  of  America,  in  the  land 
where  they  had  been  but  things,  stood  upon  their  feet  as  men. 

Moses  was  born  of  obscure  parentage  and  in  poverty; 
so  was  Lincoln.  Yet,  in  his  own  country  and  among  his  own 
people,  each  attained  the  highest  station,  stood  alone  upon  the 
very  dome  of  dread  Fame's  temple,  a  most  unselfish,  uncon- 
scious, and  unambitious  giant,  without  a  rival  and  without  a 
peer 

When  Moses  died,  "his  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural 
force  abated,"  and  the  same  was  true  of  Lincoln.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  human,  each  seems  to  have  been  called  when 
most  needed — when  on  the  very  threshold  of  a  new,  useful, 
and  even  a  more  glorious  career.  Yet  who  knows? 

Another  strikingly  suggestive  parallel,  true  alike  in  the 
land  of  Canaan  and  in  America,  in  Holy  Writ  finds  expression 
in  these  words:  "And  there  arose  not  a  prophet  since  in 
Israel  like  unto  Moses." 

"The  death  of  Moses  was  pathetic ;  that  of  Lincoln,  tra 
and  yet  there  was  an  indescribable  pathos  in  the  death  of  Lin- 
coln that  is  closely  associated  with  that  of  the  death  of  his 
great  prototype :    In  sight  of  the  promised  land,  yet  not  per- 
mitted to  enter. 

How  different  their  burials!     With  his  own  hands  and 
all  alone,  God  himself  buried  Moses  "in  a  valley  in  the  land 


418  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  Moab,  over  against  Bethpeor;  but  no  man  knoweth  of  his 
sepulchre  unto  this  day."  Not  so  with  Lincoln:  A  grateful 
nation  of  freemen,  all  in  tears,  tenderly  bore  his  body  from  the 
Capital  to  his  old  home  on  the  broad  prairies  of  Illinois,  and 
with  loving  hands  there  laid  away  the  tall  form  of  that  plain, 
sad,  unassuming  patriot,  who  in  saving  the  Union  brought 
freedom  to  America's  bondmen.  There  he  rests  in  the  majesty 
of  eternal  repose.  His  works  and  his  example  live.  Ami 
while  time  lasts,  lovers  of  liberty  and  freedom  and  justice  from 
every  land  and  clime,  aye,  even  nations  and  peoples  yet  un- 
born, will  make  pilgrimages  to  that  tomb,  and  standing  there 
with  uncovered  heads,  with  thoughts  too  deep  for  either  words 
or  tears,  will  silently  and  reverently  return  thanks  to  the  God 
of  bond  and  free  for  his  gift  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


LOOKING  BACKWARD — YULETIDE,    1902. 
[A  Purely  Personal  Question — No  Answer.] 

Looking  backward,  on  this  Christmas  eve,  1902,  over  fifty- 
eight  years  of  a  life  blending  all  classes  of  human  experience — 
sunshine  and  shadow,  joy  and  sorrow,  success  and  failure, 
hope  and  despair,  health  and  sickness,  life  and  death,  calm  and 
storm,  peace  and  war,  victory  and  defeat,  laughter  and  tears, 
song  and  sob — I  see  to-night  that  my  life  has  been  made  up  of 
strange  inconsistencies  —  sometimes  the  reckless,  rollicking, 
happy-go-lucky,  devil-may-care  vagabond — sometimes  the  dig- 
nified, thoughtful,  useful,  and  courteous  gentleman — a  pagan 
and  an  agnostic  there,  deeply  religious  here — a  student,  thinker, 
and  worker  there,  an  idle,  dreaming  loafer  here — farmer,  sol- 
dier, lawyer,  judge  there,  plain  citizen  here — fighting  there, 
yielding  here — sighing  there,  smiling  here — talking  there,  si- 
lent here — winning  there,  losing  here — wise  there,  foolish  here 
— doing  good  to  a  friend  there,  cursing  an  enemy  here — touch- 


LOOKING  BACKWARD  419 

ing  by  times  the  heights  and  the  depths  of  human  life,  glad 
here,  and  there — never  wholly  good  nor  bad — floating  on  the 
surface  of  occasion  and  trusting  to  the  sublimity  of  luck  there, 
manfully  and  earnestly  battling  with  the  realities  of  life  and 
fate  and  attaining  that  which  the  world  calls  success,  honor, 
and  even  glory  here — bearing  defeat  as  becomes  a  man  there, 
not  too  joyous  over  success  here — blest  with  the  love  and  ten- 
derness and  thoughtful  kindness  and  devotion  of  wife,  chil- 
dren, and  friends  there,  encountering,  yet  ignoring,  the  scorn 
of  others  here — loved  of  women  and  respected  of  men  there, 
hated  by  the  parvenu,  Pharisee,  and  snob  here — cherishing  that 
which  is  good  there,  despising,  yet  doing,  that  which  is  bad 
here — all  things  to  all  men  there,  known  to  and  understood 
by  few  here — in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  there,  on 
the  mountain-top  of  health  and  strength  and  vigor  here — the 
best  I  can  now  see  in  it  all  is  that  in  all  these  years  I  have  scat- 
tered rays  of  sunshine  whenever  and  wherever  I  could,  and 
heve  never  knowingly  wronged  one  single  human  being.  Thus 
have  I  lived,  moved,  and  had  my  being  among  my  fellows  on 
.this  earth  for  more  than  half  a  century. 

The  questions  now  are:    Has  it  all  paid?    Is  such  a  life 
worth  the  living? 


When  I  quit  last  night — for  it  is  now  Christmas  morning 
— and  attempted  to  formulate  my  answer  to  these  questions, 
they  would  not  come.  So  they  remain  now  unanswered. 


And  now  it  is  4  P  M.  on  Saturday,  December  27,  1902,  and 
the  answers  to  these  questions  have  not  yet  come  to  me.  May- 
be they  will  not  come  until  I  shall  rest  beneath  the  shade  on 
the  other  side  of  the  River. 

True,  T  might  answer  either  or  both  of  these  questions 
with  a  simple  "Yes"  or  "No,"  or  I  might  go  into  details  and 


420  RECOLLECTIONS 

attempt  to  give  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  me — if  any  I 
have — upon  either  the  one  theory  or  the  other;  but  upon  ma- 
ture reflection  I  am  now  constrained  to  believe  that  the  game 
is  not  worth  the  candle. 

In  a  book  or  paper  called  "At  the  Article  of  Death"  the 
author,  whoever  he  or  she  may  have  be°n,  says  of  some  one, 
but  whom  I  do  not  now  recall,  something  like  this:  "He 
passed  his  days  with  the  thought  of  his  own  end  fixed  like  a 
bull's-eye  on  the  target  of  his  meditations."  Now  this  sort 
of  thing,  if  I  know  what  it  all  means — which  is  in  doubt — has 
been  the  least  of  my  trouble,  for  I  have  never  seriously  medi- 
tated on  my  own  end,  nor  when  it  will  come,  nor  how,  nor 
where ;  nor  yet  upon  what  is  to  become  of  the  alleged  immor- 
tal part  of  me,  nor  how  nor  where  the  cold  clay  shall  be  laid 
away.  WHAT  'S  THE  USE? 

While  I  have  lived  my  own  life  in  my  own  way,  yet  I  have 
always  had  before  me  the  theory — and  have  practiced  it  in  my 
way — that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  human  to  "love  all,  trust  a  few, 
do  wrong  to  none."  And  so  this  evening,  when  the  year  1902 
is  nearing  its  close — the  year  that  has  brought  me  so  near  the 
land  where  our  dreams  come  true  that  I  could  almost  see  the 
flowers,  "the  grasses,  the  palms  that  grow  in  endless  spring 
there — and  when  returning  health  and  strength  and  vigor  give 
me  reasons  to  believe  that  I  am  back  on  this  earth  to  remain 
for  many  a  long  year,  I  feel  that  I  may  well  hope  that  when 
the  end  does  come — be  it  sooner  or  later — I  shall  have  so  lived 
that  friends  will  look  down  on  my  cold,  dead,  dumb  face  anr? 
say  of  me  as  friends  said  of  John  McElrod : 

"Here  lies  poor  Johnny  McElrod. 
Have  mercy  on  him,  gracious  God, 
As  be  would  you  if  he  were  God 
And  you  were  Johnny  McElrod.'' 


LEOPARD   MEMORIAL   ADDRESS  421^ 

To  me  it  seems  that  this  sentiment  of  broad  charity  is 
good  enough  for  the  epitaph  of  any  man  who  has  loved  his 
fellows.  And  so,  with  love  all  around,  I  say  good-night,  but 
not  good-bye,  to  all. 

JOHN  ADAMS  LEOPARD,  LAWYER — MEMORIAL  ADDRESS,  1906. 
Delivered  before  the  Missouri  Bar  Association. 

[Reprint  from  24  Mo.  Bar  Ass'n  Report,  p.   188.] 
Mr.  President: 

The  young  Missouri  lawyer  of  to-day,  in  his  elegantly 
appointed  office,  with  his  splendid  library,  his  clerks,  stenog- 
raphers, printed  records,  briefs,  etc.,  has  heard  or  read  that 
away  back  in  the  early  history  of  the  State  there  was  a  time 
when  all  these  aids  to  the  successful  practice  of  the  profession 
were  absolutely  unknown;  and  can  neither  understand  nor 
appreciate  how  the  early-day  lawyer  with  a  few  text-books  in 
his  saddle-bags,  "riding  the  circuit"  from  county  to  county 
with  the  Judge,  writing  out  in  longhand  all  his  own  pleadings, 
instructions,  and  bills  of  exceptions,  to  say  nothing  of  con- 
tracts, bonds,  deeds,  and  mortgages,  could  try  and  argue  causes 
with  either  intelligence,  skill,  ability,  or  success. 

His  law  office  was  generally  a  single  room  on  the  ground 
floor,  located  not  far  from  the  court-house;  his  law  student  or 
junior  partner  carried  in  the  wood  and  water  and  swept  out ; 
neither  carpet  nor  rug  ever  desecrated  the  floor ;  the  office  was 
heated  from  an  open  fireplace  or  a  box  stove,  and  there  was 
always  in  evidence,  as  well  as  use,  the  spit-box  filled  with  saw- 
dust; while  the  remaining  contents  of  his  office  were  not  un- 
like the  library  and  furniture  of  a  great  Illinois  lawyer  of 
that  period,  who  in  giving  in  his  assessment  list  is  said  (quot- 
ing trom  memory)  to  liav°  written  with  his  own  hand  the  fol- 
lowing description  of  his  office  property: 


422  RECOLLECTIONS 

"i  set  book-shelves  and  law-books,  worth,  say $12.50 

i  set   pigeonholes,    worth,   say i.oo 

I  table,    slightly   damaged,   worth,    say 2.50 

1  stove,  one  hinge  off,  two  legs  ditto,  worth,  say..     1.50 

2  chairs — bottom  out  of  one,  worth,  say i.oo 

i  stool,   one  leg  gone,   worth,   say 25 

Total    $17.50 

"There  is  also  a  rat-hole  in  the  corner.    This  last  will  bear 
looking  into." 

That  pioneer  lawyer  of  Illinois  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Except  for  a  railroad,  five  miles  long,  running  from 
Richmond  in  Ray  County  down  to  the  Missouri  River  oppo- 
site Lexington,  with  sawed  oak  rails,  hewed  oak  cross-ties  and 
operated  by  horse-power,  there  was  not,  until  late  in  the  year 
1852,  a  single  mile  of  railroad,  nor  a  telegraph  line  in  Mis- 
souri ;  bridges  and  ferries  were  few  and  far  between  and  State 
roads  rare;  the  lawyer  then  always  "rode  the  circuit"  on 
horseback  over  prairie  trails,  through  unconquered  forests, 
stopping  overnight  in  the  humble  cabin  of  the  settler;  was 
often  compelled  to  swim  rivers  and  creeks  in  order  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  "opening  of  court"  in  the  next  county,  and  was 
always  obliged  to  make  his  trips  to  and  from  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Jefferson  City  on  horseback  or  steamboat,  because 
these  were  then  the  only  means  of  travel.  With  these  his- 
torical facts  in  mind,  the  lawyer  of  the  present  wonders  how 
his  early-day  predecessor  could  endure  the  hardships  of 
"practice  on  the  circuit"  or  find  profit  or  pleasure  in  it. 

Yet  the  pioneer  lawyer  loved  and  enjoyed  the  life  he 
lived;  gloried  in  the  power  and  influence  of  his  profession; 
and  was  never  so  happy  as  when,  either  on  the  road  or  in  the 
court-room  by  day  or  at  the  tavern  by  night,  he  was  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight  with  his  brethren  of  the  Bar. 


LEOPARD   MEMORIAL   ADDRESS  423 

He  was  past  master  in  the  science  of  pleading — which 
my  Lord  Coke  happily  characterized  as  "the  heartstring  of 
the  common  law";  an  adept  in  the  rules  of  evidence,  of  prac- 
tice and  of  equity;  pre-eminent  in  the  ability  to  think  on  his 
feet,  and  from  the  ancient  and  honored  principles  of  the  com- 
mon law  reasoned  with  a  logical  force,  power,  and  skill  that  is 
absolutely  unknown  to  the  "case"  and  "precedent"  lawyer  of 
to-day.  The  question  then  was:  What  legal  principle  con- 
trols? Now  it  is:  Have  you  a  case  in  point?  The  hope  and 
aspiration  of  the  lawyer  then  was  professional  fame,  honor; 
now  it  is  money — commercialism.  These  facts  are  here  re- 
called neither  to  glorify  the  lawyer  of  the  past,  nor  to  dis- 
parage the  lawyer  of  the  present;  but  rather  to  emphasize  a 
few  of  the  many  marked  changes  in  the  practice,  wrought  by 
the  onward  march  of  the  past  half-century. 

The  lawyer  of  that  far-away  day  not  only  was  and  did  all 
the  things  mentioned,  but,  like  a  patriot-soldier,  standing  for 
the  enforcement  of  law  and  order  on  the  firing-line  of  our 
Western  civilization,  he  was  the  most  powerful  factor  in 
moulding,  guiding,  and  controlling  public  thought  and  action 
in  morals  and  politics,  as  well  as  in  law  and  religion. 

"There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days,"  at  the 
Missouri  Bar;  men  who  knew  Coke  upon  Littleton,  Black- 
stone  and  Kent,  Chitty  and  Starkie,  from  lid  to  lid ;  and 
among  our  many  accomplished  lawyers  of  to-day,  there  are 
few,  if  any,  who  more  clearly  or  ably  present  questions  of 
law,  or  make  to  court  or  jury  more  convincing  arguments  on 
law  or  fact,  than  did  the  early  lawyers  of  this  State. 

From  the  fact  that  in  the  thirty-one  years  which  inter- 
vened from  the  organization  of  the  State  in  1821  to  1852,  but 
fourteen  volumes  of  Missouri  Reports  were  issued,  it  is  ap- 


424  RECOLLECTIONS 

parent  that  the  finding  of  court  or  jury  then  ended  the  great 
majority  of  cases;  that  appeals  and  writs  of  error  were  few; 
and  from  a  glance  through  our  early  reports  it  seems  prob- 
able that  more  cases  went  to  the  Supreme  Court  from  St. 
Louis  than  from  all  other  parts  of  the  State.  In  1852,  Gam- 
ble, Scott,  and  Ryland  were  on  the  Bench;  no  rule  then,  or 
for  many  years  thereafter,  required  printed  records  or  briefs; 
these  were  seldom  seen,  arguments  were  oral,  and  the  opin- 
ions, delivered  in  the  proper  handwriting  of  the  judges, 
were  models  of  legal  learning,  logic,  and  brevity,  in  compari- 
son with  which  the  loosely  dictated,  long  drawn  out,  principle- 
ignoring,  and  pleading,  proof,  and  precedent-padded  opinions 
of  to-day  suggest  tears  of  regret  for  judicial  glory  departed. 
For  the  elaborate,  yet  obscure  and  illogical  dissertations  of 
the  present,  vast  libraries  and  expert  stenographers  may  share 
the  blame  with  the  overcrowded  docket,  yet  certain  it  is  that 
a  return  to  the  short,  clear,  concise  opinions  of  half  a  century 
ago  would  be  a  godsend  to  Bench,  Bar,  and  people. 

Among  the  leaders  of  the  Bar  of  North  Missouri  fifty- 
four  years  ago  (and  I  confine  myself  to  those  who  then  lived 
north  of  the  Missouri  River,  for  the  reason  that  the  then  lead- 
ers south  of  the  river  will  be  named  by  brother  William  Aull, 
of  Lexington,  in  his  address  upon  the  Rylands)  were  such 
able,  earnest,  learned,  and  distinguished  lawyers  as  Prince  L. 
Hudgins,  of  Andrew  County;  Charles  H.  Hardin,  of  Audrain; 
John  M.  Gordon,  Odon  Guitar,  and  James  S.  Rollins,  of 
Boone;  Jonathan  M.  Bassett,  James  Craig,  James  B.  Garden- 
hire,  Willard  P.  Hall,  Sr.,  Ben  Loan,  Robert  M.  Stewart, 
Henry  M.  Vories,  and  Silas  Woodson,  of  Buchanan;  Charles 
J.  Hughes,  of  .Caldwell ;  Joseph  K.  Sheley,  and  Thomas  An- 
sell,  of  Callaway;  Robert  D.  Ray,  of  Carroll;  Casper  W.  Bell, 


LEOPARD    MEMORIAL    ADDRESS  425 

John  Chappell  Crawley,  Andy  S.  Harris,  and  Benjamin  F. 
Stringf  ello\\ ,  of  Chariton ;  Noah  F.  Givens,  of  Clark; 
Alexander  W.  Doniphan,  James  H.  Moss,  and  Henry  L. 
Routt,  of  Clay;  David  R.  Atchison,  James  H.  Birch,  and 
Bela  M.  Hughes,  of  Clinton;  James  McFerran  and  Sam- 
uel A.  Richardson,  of  Daviess;  George  W.  Lewis,  of 
Gentry;  John  C.  Griffin,  Stephen  Peery,  John  H.  Shank- 
lin,  and  Jacob  T.  Tindall,  of  Grundy;  Wm.  G.  Lewis, 
of  Harrison;  John  B.  Clark.  Jo  Davis,  John  W.  Hen- 
ry, AbieJ  Leonard,  Robert  T.  Prewitt,  and  Thomas  Shackle- 
ford,  of  Howard;  James  Ellison,  Sr.,  James  S.  Greene, 
James  J.  Lindley,  and  David  Wagner,  of  Lewis;  James  A. 
Clark  and  Jacob  Smith,  of  Linn;  Luther  T.  Collier,  William 
C.  Samuel,  and  William  Y.  Slack,  of  Livingston;  Thomas  L. 
Anderson,  John  D.  S.  Dryden,  William  P.  Harrison.  Alfred 
W.  Lamb,  Gilchrist  Porter,  and  John  T.  Redd,  of  Marion; 
Abner  Gilstrap,  of  Macon;  James  O.  Broadhead.  Thomas  J. 
C.  Fagg,  and  John  B.  Henderson,  of  Pike ;  James  H.  Baldwin, 
James  N.  Burnes,  Joseph  E.  Merryman,  Elijah  Hise  Norton, 
Amos  Reese,  and  John  Wilson,  of  Platte;  George  II.  Burck- 
hardt  and  William  A.  Hall,  of  Randolph;  Aaron  H.  Conrow, 
George  W.  Dunn,  Ephraim  B.  Ewing.  Christopher  T.  Garner, 
Austin  A.  King,  and  Mordecai  Oliver,  of  Ray;  and  Wesley 
Halliburton,  Robert  B.  Morrison,  and  Marshall  B.  Witter,  of 
Sullivan  County. 

Save  and  except  Guitar  of  Boone,  Crawley  of  Chariton, 
Collier  and  Samuel  of  Livingston,  Fagg  and  Henderson  of 
Pike,  Norton  of  Platte,  and  Shackleford  of  Howard,  all  of 
these  have  passed  away — some  of  them  many,  many  years 
ago.  Their  names  are  and  will  be  preserved  in  our  reports 
of  the  great  cases  of  their  time ;  their  personal  characteristics 


426  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  achievements  are  still  sweet  in  the  memory  of  a  few  of 
the  older  members  of  the  Bar ;  but  their  glory,  grown  obscure 
in- the  mysterious  flight  of  the  years,  is  now  fading  away  like 
morning  mists  from  the  mountain  top.  Yet  from  the  personal 
reminiscences  of  these  great  ones,  a  gifted  writer  could  pro- 
duce a  volume  that  in  intense  interest  would  rival  the  famous 
legal  classic,  "Flush  Times  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi." 
What  a  theme  for  a  present-day  Baldwin ! 

In  the  spring  of  1852  a  graceful  and  accomplished  youth 
of  twenty-four  appeared  among  this  galaxy  of  lawyers,  un- 
heralded, and  entered  the  lists.  Gallant  as  a  knight  of  old, 
a  Chesterfield  in  deportment  and  civility,  the  lawyers  already 
in  the  field  found  in  this  brilliant  young  stranger  a  foeman 
worthy  of  their  steel,  for  in  the  twenty  years  he  "rode  the  cir- 
cuit" with  them  he  proved  himself  the  peer  of  the  strongest 
and  the  best. 

His  name  was  John  Adams  Leopard.  A  Virginian  by 
birth,  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  he  had  read  law  in  the  office 
of  Judge  Fred  A.  Schley,  at  Frederick,  Maryland;  had  for 
two  years  been  a  member  of  the  Bar  and  practiced  in  the 
courts  of  that  State,  and  was  even  then  a  well-equipped  law- 
yer; a  gentleman  by  blood,  instinct,  and  habit;  genial  and 
gentle,  brave  and  chivalric,  of  superb  finish  and  scholarship, 
and  endowed  with  rare  powers  as  an  eloquent,  persuasive 
speaker  before  courts,  juries,  and  people.  He  at  once  opened 
an  office  at  Gallatin  in  Daviess  County,  practiced  in  the  courts 
of  the  Grand  River  country  for  two  decades,  and  then  retired 
to  the  seclusion  of  his  farm  not  far  from  the  town.  Honored, 
beloved,  and  distinguished  above  his  fellows,  with  every  pro^ 
pect  of  wider  usefulness  and  growing  fame  before  him,  he 
voluntarily  dropped  out  of  the  ranks  to  rest  and  read  and 


LEOPARD   MEMORIAL   ADDRESS  427 

think  and  sleep  and  dream  in  the  quiet  hush  of  the  wayside. 
The  column  marched  on!  That  was  only  a  generation  ago, 
yet  it  is  doubted  if  the  younger  members  of  this  Association 
ever  heard  even  the  mention  of  his  name.  Such  is  the  fame 
of  the  lawyer! 

Coming  West  at  the  dose  of  the  Civil  War,  casting  my 
own  frail  bark  upon  the  troubled  yet  glorious  sea  of  the  law 
at  Gallatin,  during  the  many  years  of  my  residence  there  I 
enjoyed  the  personal  acquaintance  and  often  met  and  walked 
and  talked  with  more  than  half  of  the  rugged,  stalwart  old- 
time  lawyers  whom  I  have  named.  Proud  of  that  personal 
and  professional  association,  honoring  their  memory  to-day, 
it  is  no  reflection  upon  any  one  of  them  to  say  that  forty 
years  ago  John  A.  Leopard  was  the  ripest  scholar,  the  widest, 
deepest,  and  best  read  member  of  the  North  Missouri  Bar. 
His  diction,  whether  in  private  talk  or  public  speech,  was  al- 
ways couched  in  strongest  and  clearest  English,  while  his  iron 
Idgic  in  its  irresistible  force  and  power  was  like  unto  that  of 
John  C.  Calhoun.  Then  there  was  a  musically  rhythmic  ring 
and  swing  to  his  lofty  eloquence  and  pathos,  his  classical  and 
poetical  references,  that  charmed  every  thoughtful  listener. 

With  the  ambition  common  to  men  of  his  commanding 
genius,  Leopard  might  have  had,  and  could  have  filled  with 
honor  to  himself,  any  office,  political  or  judicial,  within  the 
gift  of  the  people.  But  he  was  a  Southern  gentleman  of  the 
old  school,  gave  no  thought  to  fame  or  fortune,  and  preferring 
his  books  and  his  leisure  to  the  limelight  and  the  glory  of  pub- 
lic position  and  riches,  he  never  sought  either  place,  or  power, 
or  gold.  He  read  much  and  thought  more ;  and  in  his  retire- 
ment became  a  walking,  living,  breathing  encyclopedia  of  the 
world's  history,  philosophy,  religion,  poetry,  music,  arts,  and 


428  RECOLLECTIONS 

sciences,  and  this,  with  his  broad  charity  and  charming  per- 
sonality, made  him  one  of  the  most  ii  *sting  and  instructive 
men  of  his  time. 

His  heart  and  his  manners  were  as  simple  and  unaffected 
as  those  of  a  little  child,  yet  he  was  a  most  unconscious  and 
unambitious  intellectual  giant,  whose  like  seldom  comes  to 
gladden  the  soul  and  brighten  the  pathway  of  a  friend,  or 
elevate  the  community  in  which  he  lives. 

Since  first  I  listened  entranced  to  the  music  of  his  voice, 
I  have  heard  many  able  lawyers,  in  many  courts,  but  have  al- 
ways believed  that  the  most  pleasing,  impressive,  and  instruct- 
ive law  argument  to  which  I  ever  listened  was  one  made  by 
Leopard  in  a  land  case  before  Judge  Robert  L.  Dodge,  then 
.presiding  in  the  old  common  pleas  court  at   Gallatin,  away 
back  in  1869.     The  case  involved  the  doctrine  of  that  dryest 
of  all  dry  legal  questions :  "Covenants  running  with  the  land." 
Speaking  without  note  or  law-book,  quoting  from  memory, 
citing  volume  and  page,  tracing  the  history,  development,  and 
'philosophy  of  that  doctrine  from  the  learning  of  the  ages,  with 
apt  illustrations  showing  the  application  of  the  rules  of  law 
to  the  facts  in  proof,  he  made  it  all  as  clear  and  as  plain  as 
;the  noonday  sun.     Just  admitted  to  the  bar,  his  argument  was 
to  me  a  marvel  of  learning  and  of  logic.     Yet  it  demonstrated 
the  truth  of  this  proposition,  valuable  to  me  in  later  years: 
-That  the  law  is  not  a  deep,  dark,  mysterious  science,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  that  its  most  complex  question  may  be  made 
definite,   certain,   and   luminous   by   patient    research,    study, 
thought,  reflection,  and  logical  analysis. 

The  last  public  address  I  heard  Leopard  deliver  was  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  1871,  in  front  of  the  old  court-house  at 
Gallatin.  The  bitterness  of  the  Civil  War  still  rankled  in 


LEOPARD   MEMORIAL   ADDRESS  429 

the  hearts  of  the  people;  his  own  heart  had  gone  out  in  sym- 
pathy to  kindred  and  friends  in  his  native  Southland,  yet 
loving  the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the  old  Flag,  he  had 
not  raised  hand  or  voice  against  either  during  the  four-years 
struggle.  Taking  for  his  text  the  two  lofty  sentiments  at  that 
day  on  the  lip  of  every  one,  "Love  is  stronger  than  hate" 
(the  slogan  of  the  successful  party  in  the  State  campaign  of 
1870),  and  that  sublime  invocation,  "Let  us  have  peace,"  then 
recently  penned  by  General  Grant — he  delivered  a  speech  that 
for  majestic  patriotism,  fervid  and  forceful  oratory,  I  have 
never  heard  excelled.  His  strong,  ringing  powerful  appeal 
for  peace,  good-will,  and  good  citizenship  so  touched  the  heart 
and  brain  of  all,  that  for  it  each  hearer,  when  he  closed,  knew 
he  was  a  better  citizen,  a  more  patriotic  American. 

Soon  after  this  he  retired  from  the  activities  of  life,  quit 
the  town,  went  out  to  his  farm,  and  there  amid  the  quiet  of 
home  and  family,  the  books  and  the  magazines,  the  woods,  the 
flowers  and  the  birds  he  loved  so  well,  like  the  sage  and  phil- 
osopher that  he  was,  he  calmly  and  fearlessly  awaited  the 
closing  scene. 

On  the  3 1st  day  of  July,  1905,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
seven  years,  this  venerable  lawyer,  gifted  orator,  scholar, 
dreamer,  patriot,  and  friend,  unmoved  and  at  peace  with  God 
and  man,  felt  the  touch  of  the  gathering  mists  of  death  as  he 
lay  in  that  loved  country  home,  surrounded  by  wife,  children, 
and  friends.  He  saw  not  their  tears,  heard  not  their  sobs; 
for  the  lights  were  going  out,  the  dream  ending,  and  his  dy- 
ing eyes  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  grasses,  the  flowers,  the 
cooling  shade,  and  the  glories  of  the  land  beyond  the  River; 
the  soft  summer  air,  filled  with  song  of  bird  and  hum  of  bee, 
laden  with  perfume  of  roses,  pinks,  and  new-mown  hay, 
floated  in  through  the  open  window,  bringing  balm  of  heal- 


430  RECOLLECTIONS 

ing  and  of  rest — forget  fulness — sleep — then  "that  golden  key 
that  opes  the  palace  of  eternity  "  was  gently  turned  and  the 
great  soul  of  John  A.  Leopard  passed  within. 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH — KANSAS  CITY,  Mo.,  1909. 
Address   before   Missouri  Historical  Society. 

[Reprint  from  4  Mo.  Historical  Review,  page  I ;  also 
from  ii  Kan.  Hist.  Coll'n,  page  581.] 

BEGINNING:  "In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth."  Science  often  attempts  to  fix  this  at  some 
particular  period,  but  as  no  one  knows  certainly,  this  im- 
perfect sketch  of  the  history  of  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  com- 
mences just  where  the  Book  does — "in  the  beginning." 

INDIANS  :  From  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  this  part  of 
the  western  hemisphere  must  have  passed  to  the  original 
proprietor  of  our  soil — the  Indian.  For  when  the  white  man 
here  first  set  his  foot,  at  the  dawn  of  our  known  history,  the 
copper-colored  Indian  was  here  with  his  squaw,  his  papoose, 
and  his  pony,  and  in  the  actual,  open,  and  undisputed  posses- 
sion and  control  of  all  that  country  which  is  now  known  as 
North  America. 

1492:  The  earliest  successful  European  discoverer,  ex- 
plorer, and  adventurer  of  this  continent  was  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus, of  Spain,  in  1492.  After  his  party,  there  came  hither 
first  his  many  Spanish  successors,  then  the  subjects  of  sunny 
France,  and  still  later  the  English. 

1540:  It  is  more  than  probable,  however,  that  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  great  Coronado  were  the  first  white  visitors  to 
this  part  of  the  country,  and  the  time  about  1541. 

The  historical  facts  relating  to  this  ill-fated  expedition 


SKETCH  431 

in  brief  are:  That,  following  earlier  reports  which  had  al- 
ready come  to  him,  Charles  V.  of  Spain,  and  his  Viceroy  in 
Mexico  (New  Spain),  directed  Coronado  to  explore  and  sub- 
due for  the  Spanish  Crown  the  city  of  Quivira  and  the 
seven  cities  of  Cibola  (Buffalo),  without  knowledge  as  to 
the  precise  location  of  either;  that  Castenada,  who  accom- 
panidd  the  expedition  as  its  historian,  twenty  years  later 
wrote  out  his  story  thereof  for  the  King,  and  from  his  writ- 
ings, as  well  as  from  many  subsequent  publications,  the  world 
to-day  has  all  its  information  as  to  the  success  and  failure  of 
that  undertaking;  that  Coronado  first  organized  his  forces  at 
Compos tella,  Guadalajara,  in  Old  Mexico,  in  February,  1540, 
but  made  his  actual  start  from  Culiacan,  on  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
in  April  of  that  year,  with  350  Spanish  cavaliers  and  800  In- 
dian guides ;  that  during  his  two-years  quest,  either  the  entire 
or  detachments  of  this  expedition  wandered  onward  east  and 
north  through  (now)  Old  Mexico,  Arizona,  New  Mexico, 
Colorado,  and  into  the  northeastern  portion  of  Kansas,  en- 
countering en  route  and  with  strong  arm  subduing  many  re- 
calcitrant Indian  towns  and  villages,  and  treating  with  others 
who  were  more  friendly;  but  that  finally,  disappointed  and 
humiliated  at  his  failure  to  find  the  gold,  silver,  treasure,  and 
cities  for  which  he  sought,  Coronado  and  his  surviving  fol- 
lowers returned  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  and  thence  on  to  Old 
Spain,  about  1542. 

It  is  also  historically  certain  that  about  fifty  miles  north- 
west from  White  Oaks,  in  New  Mexico,  may  be  seen  to-day, 
still  mutely  bearing  the  ancient  name  of  "Le  Grande  Quivira," 
the  ruins  of  a  once  great  city,  which  Coronado  sought  and 
found  not,  but  which  present-day  archaeologists  say  must 
have  contained  a  population  of  from  150,000  to  300,000.  The 
dwelling-houses,  as  now  shown  by  these  ruins,  were  con- 


432  RECOLLECTIONS 

structed  with  mathematical  accuracy  of  blue  trachite  and 
limestone,  while  the  two  ruined  temples  stand  far  above  all 
others,  with  nothing  to  mark  their  uses  other  than  that  which 
now  appears  as  the  form  of  a  Portuguese  cross  in  their  front 
doors.  Still  traceable  in  this  desert  waste,  irrigating-ditches 
indicate  that  this  people  once  obtained  their  water  supply 
from  the  adjoining  mountains ;  but  for  more  than  one  hundred 
years  past  no  water  of  consequence  has  been  found  within 
many  miles  of  the  ruins.  Skeletons  of  the  human,  as  well 
as  of  the  lower  animals,  are  there  found;  old  mining-shafts 
and  crude  smelters  of  ages  ago  are  also  found  in  that  vicinity, 
but  no  mines  of  either  gold  or  silver.  While  the  prehistoric 
ruins  of  other  once  populous  cities,  in  widely  differing  points 
in  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  furnish  persuasive  proof  that 
these  were  once  among  the  famed  "seven  cities  of  Cibola." 

Among  the  many  traditions  and  legends  respecting  the 
causes  which  led  up  to  the  wanderings  of  this  expedition,  and 
to-day  believed  by  many  Spaniards,  Mexicans,  and  archaeolo- 
gists of  the  Southwest,  are  at  least  two  that  are  worth  preser- 
vation: The  one  is  that  on  their  eastward  journey,  Coronado 
and  his  party,  almost  famished  for  water,  finally  reached  the 
big  spring  near  the  Indian  pueblo  in  Taguex  which  is  now 
Socorro,  on  the  Rio  Grande  in  New  Mexico;  that  these  Indian 
guides  then  knew  that  the  city  of  Le  Grande  Quivira,  the 
main  object  of  Coronado's  conquest  and  expedition,  was  only 
about  ninety  miles  northeast  of  this  point,  but  instead  of  guid- 
ing him  there,  they  then  purposely  misled  him  and  carried  the 
expedition  northward  and  up  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Rio 
Grande  del  Norte  and  on  into  Kansas. 

The  other  is  that,  concealing  their  abiding-place  for 
many  long  years,  from  some  remote  country  in  the  far  North, 
mysterious  sun-worshippers  voyaged  in  their  own  ships  to  and 


HISTORICAL   SKETCH  433 

quietly  purchased  rich  and  abundant  supplies  of  merchandise 
from  the  traffickers  of  the  City  of  Mexico  and  of  old  Madrid 
in  Spain,  and  that  they  were  ever  laden  with  gold  and  silver 
and  precious  stones,  an-.l  the  merchants  assumed  that  they 
must  represent  a  powerful  and  wealthy  people  who  were 
skilled  in  the  arts  and  sciences  and  lived  in  many-storied 
stone  houses,  with  temples  of  wonderful  magnificence,  all 
enclosed  within  the  walled  city  of  Le  Grande  Quivira.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  second  Spa..ish 
expedition  to  that  country,  about  1549,  did  capture  and  sub- 
due this  ancient,  prehistoric  city  and  people,  and  then  com- 
pelled all  the  residents  of  that  vicinity  to  change  their  re- 
ligion from  worshippers  of  the  sun  to  Catholicism.  When  the 
Toltecs,  Aztecs,  and  Spaniards  first  came  to  the  great  South- 
west, they  found  there,  as  elsewhere,  the  Indian.  Through 
their  priests  and  monks  the  Spaniards  controlled  all  these 
natives,  in  that  country,  from  about  1549  to  1680,  at  which 
later  date  the  natives  arose  in  their  might  and  majesty,  drove 
the  foreign  oppressors  from  their  soil,  and,  curiously  enough, 
after  this  lapse  of  about  130  years,  at  once  resumed  the  dress, 
habits,  customs,  and  religion  of  their  fathers,  and  for  many 
years  thereafter  held  the  undisputed  possession  of  their  native 
land.  When  the  Spaniards  returned  to  that  country,  about 
1740,  they  found  this  once  happy,  flowery,  and  fertile  valley 
a  howling  wilderness  or  barren  waste ;  the  once  populous  city 
of  Le  Grande  Quivira  deserted  and  with  no  trace  of  its  form- 
er greatness  beyond  human  skeletons  and  the  ruins,  while  the 
shifting  sands  of  the  desert  had  covered  the  habitations  of 
the  people. 

Between  1680  and  1740,  it  is  probable  that  every  form 
of  man  and  beast  capable  of  doing  so  escaped  that  country 
before  some  impending  calamity  and  were  gradually  swal- 


434  RECOLLECTIONS 

lowed  up  and  lost  in 'the  adjacent  country;  but  that  all  unable 
through  age  or  disease  to  so  escape,  perished  through  the 
sulphurous  fumes  of  the  then  recent  volcano  at  the  Mai  Pais 
(Bad  Country),  then  and  now  just  south  of  these  ruins  on  the 
desert  plain.  An  extinct  crater,  visited  by  the  writer  in 
1892,  is  still  seen;  while  the  lava-beds  extend  thence  over 
fifty  miles  down  that  valley.  Just  who  these  people  were, 
whence  they  came,  whither  and  when  they  went,  how  they 
perished,  are  all  questions  which  can  not  be  accurately  an- 
swered this  side  of  the  river  called  Death;  but  the  lover  of 
the  mysterious  and  unknown,  the  student,  archaeologist,  and 
thinker  of  the  future,  will  stand  amid  these  ruins,  and  will  la- 
ment the  fact  with  uncovered  head,  that  so  little  of  it  all  is 
known  to  man. 

But  the  precise  point  now  of  especial  interest  to  the 
people  of  Kansas  City  arises  upon  an  analysis  of  the  circum- 
stantial evidence  which  points  to  the  historical  fact  that  at 
the  eastern  terminus  of  their  long  wanderings  in  search  of 
the  Quivira  country,  Coronado  and  his  followers  were  the 
first  white  men  to  visit  the  very  spot  whereon  now  stands 
Kansas  City. 

There  is  a  half  legendary  story  to  the  effect  that  from 
the  historic  spot  upon  which  he  once  stood  in  northeastern 
Kansas,  Coronado  and  the  forces  under  his  command  passed 
on  to  where  Atchison,  Kansas,  is  now  located,  thence  down 
the  Missouri  to  the  mouth  of  the  Kansas,  and  thence  sixteen 
miles  up  the  latter  to  Coronado  Springs,  later  called  Bonner 
Springs,  in  Wyandotte  County,  Kansas,  where  they  spent  the 
winter  of  1541-42.  It  is  known  that  Coronado's  Spanish  cava- 
liers, among  other  weapons,  then  carried  and  used  as  an  imple- 
ment of  war  halberds  similar  to  the  metallic  Roman  halberd, 
and  in  excavations  in  our  Missouri  River  bottom  lands  within 


HISTORICAL   SKETCH  435 

the  past  few  years  there  have  been  discovered  and  unearthed, 
in  a  splendid  state  of  preservation,  beneath  many  feet  of  al- 
luvial soil,  the'  metallic  heads  of  two  such  halberds  in  this 
vicinity.  The  first  is  now  in  the  possession  of  Professor 
Joseph  A.  Wilson,  a  distinguished  archaeologist  at  Lexington, 
Missouri,  and  was  found  just  northeast  of  Kansas  City  in  this 
(Jackson)  county;  while  the  other  is  in  the  hands  of  a  Catho- 
lic priest  at  Leaven  worth,  Kansas,  and  was  discovered  just 
across  the  Missouri  River  from  that  city,  in  Platte  County, 
Missouri.  These  late  discoveries  point  to  the  conclusion  that 
Coronado  and  his  men  once  wandered  over  these  hills  and 
prairies,  and  that  at  least  two  of  his  cavaliers  lost  their  lives 
in  this  immediate  neighborhood  through  either  savage  In- 
dians or  wild  beasts,  in  both  of  which  this  country  then 
abounded. 

1584:  Many  scholars  claim  and  few  dispute  the  historic 
proposition  that  from  the  voyage  and  discovery  of  Columbus 
in  1492,  the  Crown  as  well  as  the  statesmen  of  Great  Britain 
longed  to  explore  and  own  all  the  territory  which  later  be- 
came America;  and  that  Queen  Elizabeth,  "in  the  sixe  and 
twentieth  yeere"  of  her  reign,  and  on  March  25,  1584,  at- 
tempted to  grant  all  this  vast  domain  to  her  then  trusted  fol- 
lower, Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  To  those  of  the  present  day 
it  is  a  trifle  curious  to  note  the  fact  that  in  this  patent  the 
Virgin  Queen  described  the  grantee  thereof  as  "our  trustie 
and  welbeloued  seruant  Walter  Ralegh,  Esquire,  and  to  his 
heires  and  and  assigns  forever" ;  and  also  designated  this  coun- 
try as  "remote,  heathen  and  barbarous  lands,  countries  and 
territories."  This  was  the  first  step  in  the  work  of  the  En- 
glish colonization  of  America,  and  while  under  the  grant  of 
this  authority  five  different  voyages  were  here  made;  yet  that 


436  RECOLLECTIONS 

country  did  not  then  succeed  in  making  a  permanent  settle- 
ment upon  American  soil. 

1607:  In  establishing  a  starting-point,  known  to  all,  it 
is  well  to  here  pause,  look  backward  and  reflect:  That 
whether  descended  from  Cavalier,  Puritan,  or  Huguenot,  the 
average  American  citizen  has  inherited  and  to-day  holds, 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  many  of  the  thoughts 
and  theories  of  his  remote  ancestors,  and  that  heredity,  en- 
vironment, and  education  largely  determine  and  fix  our  po- 
litical and  religious  faith.  And  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  United  States  was  originally  founded  and  the  first  perma- 
nent settlements  were  here  first  made  by  peoples  of  widely 
divergent  views  on  both  politics  and  religion  under  the  au- 
thority conferred  by  three  royal  English  grants  to  American 
colonists,  as  follows:  Jamestown,  in  Virginia,  in  1607;  Ply- 
mouth, in  Massachusetts,  in  1620;  and  Charleston,  in  South 
Carolina,  in  1660. 

1609:  In  the  seventh  year  of  his  reign,  James  I.,  then 
King  of  England,  by  his  royal  patent  dated  May  23,  1609, 
granted  to  "The  Treasurer  and  Company  of  Adventurers  of 
the  City  of  London,  for  the  first  colony  of  Virginia"  (the 
same  sovereign  made  the  first  cession  to  that  colony  in  1606) 
"all  those  lands,  countries,  and  territories  situate,  lying,  and 
being  in  that  part  of  America  called  Virginia,"  from  Cape 
or  Point  Comfort,  a  strip  of  land  four  hundred  miles  in  width 
and  therein  designated  as  being  "up  into  the  land  throughout 
from  sea  to  sea."  This  cession  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pa- 
cific Oceans  sought  to  make  this  part  of  the  territory  not  only 
English,  but  within  and  part  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia,  for 
Kansas  City  is  located  on  this  4OO-mile  wide  tract  of  land 
running  from-  "sea  to  sea." 


HISTORICAL    SKETCH  437 

The  subsequent  European  claimants  were  as  follows: 

1682:  Ceremonious  possession  was  taken  of  all  that 
country  which  afterward  became  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  by, 
for,  and  in  the  name  of  Louis  XIV.,  then  King  of  France,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  River,  on  April  9,  1682,  and  this 
portion  of  the  country  was  then  given  the  name  of  that  sov- 
ereign. While  that  claim  was  made  and  thereafter  main- 
tained, yet  the  undisputed  possession  thereof  did  not  actually 
begin,  nor  was  there  here  made  any  permanent  settlement, 
until  the  year  1699.  New  Orleans  was  founded  in  1718,  and 
permanent  seat  of  the  French  Government  was  there  estab- 
lished in  1722.  In  the  meanwhile  Louis  XIV.  first  granted 
this  entire  province  to  one  Anthony  Crozat  in  1712,  and  his 
occupancy  being  a  failure,  later  and  in  1717  granted  a  similar 
charter  to  John  Law.  This,  too,  proved  a  failure,  and  in 
1732  both  charters  were  cancelled  and  all  this  country  re- 
verted to  the  Crown  of  France.  But  in  history,  song,  and 
story  may  yet  be  read  and  studied  with  profit  the  final  failure 
of  the  John  Law  scheme  under  the  name  of  the  "Mississippi 
Bubble." 

1763:  Then  in  that  stormy  struggle  between  England 
and  France  to  settle  and  adjust  their  conflicting  claims  to 
this  territory  and  their  international  disputes  growing  out 
of  the  French  and  Indian  wars,  by  the  treaty  of  Fontaine- 
bleau,  duly  ratified  by  the  crowned  heads  of  France,  England, 
and  Spain  by  the  treaty  of  Paris  on  February  10,  1763,  all 
the  claims  and  possessions  of  France  in  all  this  country  lying 
to  the  eastward  of  the  Mississippi  were  ceded  and  granted  to 
England,  while  all  other  portions  of  this  country  were  then 
and  thereby  ceded  to  Spain. 


438  RECOLLECTIONS 

This  treaty  fully  made  the  ground  upon  which  Kansas 
City  stands  again  Spanish.  Without  apparent  knowledge  of 
this  treaty  of  Paris,  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  in  Missouri,  was 
laid  out,  founded,  and  named  in  honor  of  Louis  XV.  of 
France,  in  1764;  but  in  the  following  year  Louis  St.  Ange  de 
Bellerive  there  assumed  the  reins  of  government.  Then  came 
Count  Don  Alexandro  O'Reilly,  under  the  authority  of  the 
King  of  Spain,  with  an  armed  force,  and  formally  took  pos- 
session for  the  Spanish  King  on  August  18,  1769.  From  this 
date  on,  and  in  fact  up  to  1804,  this  territory  was  subject  to 
and  under  the  command  of  the  Spanish  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Upper  Louisiana,  whose  seat  of  government  was  the  city  of 
St.  Louis 

1800:  But  Europe  was  in  turmoil,  the  great  Napoleon 
was  in  the  saddle  and  disarranging  the  map  of  all  that  coun- 
try. No  one  seems  to  have  known  just  what  was  coming 
next.  So,  after  many  conferences  and  negotiations,  the  two 
countries  of  France  and  Spain  at  last  got  together  and  the 
result  was  the  terms  and  conditions  of  the  definitive  treaty 
of  St.  Ildefonso,  entered  into  on  October  i,  1800,  by  Napoleon, 
who  was  then  the  First  Consul  of  the  French  Republic,  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  King  of  Spain  on  the  other,  by  which 
all  this  country  was  retroceded  to  and  again  became  a  part 
of  France. 

1803:  Immeasurably  greater  in  all  ways  than  any  other 
land  transaction  of  earth,  either  before  or  since,  and  of  vaster 
direct  personal  concern  to  the  people  of  America  than  all  oth- 
er treaties  combined,  in  this  year  came  the  purchase  and 
cession  of  Louisiana.  The  War  of  the  Revolution  had  been 
fought  and  won,  by  our  treaty  of  peace  and  cession,  concluded 
with  England  in  1783,  the  United  States  had  been  granted  all 
public  lands,  east  of  the  Mississippi  River  (except  in  Florida^, 


HISTORICAL    SKETCH  439 

not  owned  by  the  original  thirteen  Colonies,  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution had  been  proclaimed  adopted  in  1789,  George  Wash- 
ington and  John  Adams  had  been  and  Thomas  Jefferson  then 
was  the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America.  Then  it 
was  that  almost  unaided  and  practically  alone,  Robert  R.  Liv- 
ingston, as  our  principal  representative  at  the  French  Court, 
concluded  with  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  still  First  Consul  of 
France,  on  April  30,  1803,  the  treaty  of  cession  under  and  by 
the  terms  of  which  the  French  ceded  and  granted  to  the 
United  States  all  that  vast  empire  since  known  in  history  as 
the  Louisiana  Purchase.  For  a  period  of  more  than  one  hun- 
dred years  one  of  the  illusions  of  our  history  has  been  that,  as 
our  President,  Thomas  Jefferson  then  was  and  to-day  is  en- 
titled to  all  the  credit,  honor,  and  glory  of  this  great  transac- 
tion. But  a  free  people  may  always  consider  the  truth  of  his- 
tory. Jefferson  was  a  cautious  and  conservative  statesman. 
The  historical  facts,  then  well  known,  in  brief  are:  That 
under  the  uncertain  and  somewhat  contradictory  instructions 
from  our  Government  at  Washington,  our  diplomatic  repre- 
sentative who  mainly  negotiated  this  great  treaty  was  author- 
ized and  directed,  not  to  acquire  this  empire,  but  "only  to 
treat  for  lands  on  the  east  side  of  the  Mississippi."  In  other 
words,  to  acquire  (among  other  rights)  that  part  of  the  Pur- 
chase then  known  as  the  City  and  Island  of  New  Orleans. 

The  Government  at  Washington  did  not,  at  first,  dream 
of  acquiring  one  foot  of  the  unknown  land  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River.  The  scheme  to  sell  and  cede  to  the  United  States 
all  French  possessions  on  this  side  of  the  waters  originated 
in  the  fertile  brain  of  that  marvelous  man,  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, who  proposed  to  dispose  of  it  all,  because,  as  he  then 
said,  France  "had  to  sell."  Livingston  had  no  authority  to 
negotiate  for  the  purchase  of  anything  save  the  city  and 
island  mentioned ;  indeed,  to  do  so  was  beyond  and  in  practical 


440  RECOLLECTIONS 

violation  of  the  instructions  of  our  Government.  Yet,  with 
far-sighted  statesmanship,  rare  courage,  and  sagacity,  he  saw 
the  tremendous  advantage  of  the  Purchase  to  our  country, 
wisely  and  bravely  assumed  the  responsibility,  closed  the 
negotiations,  and  concluded  this  treaty.  Hence  to  Napoleon's 
offer  to  sell,  and  Livingston's  wisdom  and  courage  in  buying, 
we  are  to-day  indebted  for  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  Living- 
ston then  said :  "This  is  the  noblest  work  of  our  lives." 

When  the  treaty  reached  Washington  in  that  summer, 
the  administration  was  astounded  at  the  audacity  of  Living- 
ston as  well  as  with  the  immensity  of  the  transaction.  Presi- 
dent Jefferson  at  that  period  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  our 
Government  had  no  lawful  right  to  buy  or  hold  the  purchased 
territory;  talked  and  wrote  about  making  "waste  paper  of 
the  Constitution,"  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  formulate,  with 
his  own  hand,  an  amendment  to  the  Federal  -Constitution  pro- 
viding for  the  government  of  the  Purchase  in  the  event  that 
the  Senate  ratified  the  treaty.  Great  Livingston  again  went 
to  the  front  and  so  strongly  urged  its  ratification  that  the  Pres- 
ident finally  yielded,  and  duly  submitted  the  treaty  for  ratifica- 
tion, but  suggested  that  but  little  be  said  about  the  constitu- 
tional question  involved,  but  little  debate  be  had,  and  that  the 
Congress  should  act  in  silence. 

Noth  withstand  ing  the  doubts  and  fears  of  the  executive 
and  the  fierce  opposition,  the  Senate  wisely  took  the  broan 
national  view  that  the  right  to  acquire  territory  by  conquest 
or  purchase  and  govern  it  was  inherent  in  every  sovereign 
nation,  that  ours  was  a  sovereign  nation,  and  accordingly 
the  Senate,  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  ratified  the  treaty 
and  the  Congress  soon  passed  laws  for  the  government  of  the 
Purchase,  thus  vindicating  the  sagacity,  wisdom,  and  states- 
manship of  Livingston  as  well  as  the  sovereignty  of  the  United 
States. 


HISTORICAL    SKETCH  441 

Thus  it  came  about  that  for  the  consideration  named  and 
about  $15,000,000  of  money,  the  United  States  purchased  and 
France  ceded  to  this  Government  all  the  land  that  had  been 
theretofore  retrocecled  by  Spain  to  France.  Of  this  cession 
Napoleon  then  said :  "This  accession  of  territory  strengthens 
forever  the  power  of  the  United  States ;  and  I  have  just  given 
to  England  a  maritime  rival  that  will  sooner  or  later  humble 
her  pride."  And  in  his  message  transmitting  this  treaty  to 
Congress,  which  caused  it  proclaimed  on  October  21,  1803,  in 
noting  the  possibilities  of  this  Purchase,  President  Jefferson 
then  said :  "The  fertility  of  the  country,  its  climate  and  ex- 
tent, promise  in  due  season  important  aids  to  our  treasury, 
an  ample  provision  for  our  posterity,  and  a  wide  spread  for 
the  blessings  of  freedom  and  equal  laws."  All  this  occurred 
before  the  days  when  steam  and  electricity  were  harnessed  and 
working  for  the  use  of  man,  and  is  therefore  not  so  strange. 
Then  the  average  American  had  no  adequate  conception  of 
the  West;  the  bulk  of  our  population  lived  east  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies;  and  the  people  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  knew  even 
less  then  than  they  now  know  of  our  country  lying  west  of 
the  Father  of  Waters.  This  cession  included  almost  all  of 
the  now  States  of  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  Min- 
nesota, Nebraska,  Oregon,  Oklahoma,  Kansas,  the  two  Da- 
kotas,  Idaho,  Montana,  Washington,  and  Wyoming.  Of  late 
maps  have  been  published  and  books  written  to  prove  that  this 
purchase  did  not  extend  beyond  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains ;  but  a  study  of  Congressional  debates  upon  this  question 
will  convince  the  scholar  and  thinker  that  all  the  States  named, 
and  parts  of  others,  were  intended  to  be  included.  On  Octo- 
ber 31,  1803,  the  Congress  duly  authorized  the  President  to 
take  possession  of  and  occupy  this  territory,  and  on  December 
20,  1803,  formal  possession  thereof  was  duly  delivered  by  the 
Republic  of  France,  through  Lauissat,  its  Colonial  Prefect,  to 


442  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  United   States,  through  W.   C.  C.   Claiborne  and  James 
Wilkinson,  as  Commissioners  of  our  Republic. 

1804:  For  a  few  months  after  this  purchase,  all  this 
country  was  known  and  designated  as  the  Territory  of  Louis- 
iana, but  this  was  changed,  by  our  Congress,  on  March  26, 
1804,  the  now  State  of  Louisiana  and  a  part  of  that  which  is 
now  Mississippi  was  designated  the  "Territory  of  Orleans" 
and  all  the  remainder  of  the  Purchase  was  then  called  the 
"District  of  Louisiana" ;  and  that  Congress  then  further  pro- 
vided that  the  executive  and  judicial  power  of  the  Territory 
of  Indiana  should  be  extended  to  and  over  this  District,  and 
"the  Governor  and  Judges"  of  that  Territory  were  therein 
given  the  authority  to  enact  laws  for  and  hold  their  courts 
therein.  So  in  May,  1804,  Governor  William  Henry  Harrison, 
from  the  seat  of  justice  of  Indiana  Territory  at  Saint  Vin- 
cennes  on  the  Wabash  River,  rode  over  on  horseback  to  the 
city  of  St.  Louis  to  ascertain  the  wants  of  our  people  in  the 
way  of  laws  and  courts.  Having  satisfied  himself  on  these 
scores,  this  Territorial  Governor  returned  to  his  home,  and 
during  that  and  the  following  year  "the  Governor  and  Judges1' 
of  that  Territory  enacted  and  here  enforced  such  laws  as  they 
deemed  were  needed  by  this  "District." 

In  the  spring  of  this  year,  too,  the  great  Lewis  and  Clark 
expedition  started  from  the  city  of  St.  Louis  and  came  up  the 
Missouri  River  and  passed  the  site  of  Kansas  City,  on  its  way 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  wondrously  strange  history  and 
vaster  possibilities  of  this  expedition  of  1804  ar>d  1806,  under 
the  title  of  "The  Conquest,"  has  recently  been  well  written 
and  printed  by  Eva  Emery  Dye,  of  Oregon. 

1805 :  On  March  3,  1805,  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  enacted  a  law  which  not  only  changed  our  official  name 
from  the  "District  of  Louisiana"  to. the.  "Territory  of 


HISTORICAL    SKETCH  443 

iana,"  but  provided  for  our  first  local  Territorial  self-govern- 
ment. That  Congressional  Act  conferred  upon  the  Governor 
of  this  Territory  full  executive  authority,  while  the  legislative 
power  and  power  to  enact  and  enforce  all  laws  was  therein 
granted  to  that  "Governor  and  the  Judges,  or  a  majority  of 
them." 

1808:  The  most  important  and  far-reaching  Indian  treaty 
that  was  ever  made  anywhere,  affecting  early  Missouri,  was 
that  treaty  which  upon  its  face  recites  the  fact  that  it  was 
"made  and  concluded  at  Fort  Clark,  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Missouri  about  five  miles  above  Fire  Prairie,"  on  November 
10,  1808,  and  that  this  Fort  was  then  located  "on  the  south 
side  of  the  Missouri,  about  three  hundred  miles  up  that  river" 
from  the  city  of  St.  Louis. 

This  treaty  was  between  the  Big  and  the  Little  Tribes  of 
Osage  Indians  and  our  Government,  and  by  its  terms  those 
tribes,  then  being  in  actual  possession,  ceded  and  granted  to 
the  United  States  all  lands  lying  eastward  of  a  line  drawn 
due  south  from  Fort  Clark,  and  running  from  the  Missouri 
River  to  the  Arkansas  River.  This  then  left  as  Tndian  lands 
and  country  all  westward  of  the  line  so  drawn. 

Upon  their  slow  voyage  up  the  Missouri  River  on  their 
way  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  in  1804,  Lewis  and  Clark  had  first 
established  this  Fort,  and  then  named  it  in  honor  of  the  junior 
member  of  their  exploring  party.  After  the  ratification  of 
the  great  Indian  treaty  of  1808,  and  as  a  tribute  to  the  memory 
of  the  Osage  tribes  of  Indians,  the  name  of  the  place  was 
changed  from  Fort  Clark  to  Fort  Osage,  and  still  later  was 
again  changed  to  Sibley,  to  perpetuate  the  name  and  fame  of 
George  C.  Sibley,  who  was  at  one  time  the  United  States 
Government  agent  at  that  point. 

If  any  archaeologist  is  now  curious  to  know  just  where 
to  locate  the  site  of  ancient  Fort  Clark,  the  task  is  easy:  Set  • 


444  RECOLLECTIONS 

up  a  compass  anywhere  on  the  Missouri-Kansas  line,  run  due 
east  twenty-four  miles  and  thence  due  north  to  the  Missouri 
River,  and  there  may  be  found  to-day  the  city  of  Sibley,  in 
Jackson  County,  Missouri,  once  Fort  Osage  and  still  earlier 
Fort  Clark. 

1812 :  By  an  Act  of  Congress,  which  commenced  "to  have 
full  force"  on  the  first  Monday  in  December,  1812,  the  name 
of  this  portion  of  the  country  was  again  changed  from  the 
"Territory  of  Louisiana"  to  the  "Territory  of  Missouri" :  and 
executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  powers  were  then  for  the 
first  time  vested  in  and  conferred  upon  our  own  peoples. 
Although  the  fathers  then  knew  all  about  the  Missouri  River 
from  near  its  source  to  its  mouth,  yet  this  was  the  first  Federal 
recognition  of  the  name  now  so  well  and  highly  honored — 
Missouri.  This  Act  did  not  change  our  boundary  lines  and 
the  Territory  of  Missouri  then  embraced  and  had  jurisdiction 
over  all  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  excepting  only  the  extreme 
southern  portion  thereof,  as  stated.  All  general  laws  govern- 
ing this  Territory  from  1803  to  1821,  both  Congressional  and 
Territorial,  may  be  found  in  print  in  Volume  i  of  the  Ter- 
ritorial Laws  of  Missouri. 

1820:  The  enabling  Act  of  the  Congress  of  March  6, 
1820,  was  passed  to  authorize  the  people  of  this  Territory  to 
form  a  State  and  adopt  a  Constitution  for  their  own  govern- 
ment. The  boundaries  of  the  future  State  were  then  first 
fixed  as  they  to-day  remain,  the  "Platte  Purchase"  of  1837 
excepted.  Our  delegates  thereupon  duly  formed,  adopted,  and 
on  July  20,  1820,  sent  to  that  Congress  a  State  Constitution, 
which  was  not  satisfactory  to  our  national  law-makers. 

Upon  the  questions  raised  in  the  discussion  of  the  en- 
abling Act  was  fought  the  most  terrific  political  battle  that 
had  ever  been  waged  in  this  country  up  to  that  time.  It  is 
known  in  history  as  the  "Missouri  Compromise  of  1820,"  and 


HISTORICAL   SKETCH  445 

for  length,  intensity,  and  bitterness  this  struggle  then  had  no 
parallel  in  American  history. 

1821:  The  final  result  was  that  on  March  2,  1821,  the 
Congress  by  resolution  provided  for  the  admission  of  this 
State  into  the  Union,  with  slavery,  but  "upon  the  fundamental 
conditions"  named  in  the  Act.  On  June  26th  following  our 
Legislature  entered  its  protest  against  that  condition,  but  gave 
its  reluctant  assent  to  its  terms,  and  lastly,  on  August  10,  1821, 
James  Monroe,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  proclaimed 
the  historic  fact  that  on  that  day  Missouri  became,  and  it  has 
ever  since  been,  a  State  of  the  American  Union. 

The  organization,  Constitution,  and  admission  into  the 
Union  of  the  State  of  Missouri  then  left  all  the  remainder 
of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  lying  westward  and  northwest  of 
this  State,  as  unorganized  Territories,  possessions  of  this  Gov- 
ernment, then  subject  to  Congressional  legislation,  but  having 
no  laws  of  their  own,  excepting  those  theretofore  passed  by  the 
several  sovereigns  named. 

1825 :  The  original  proprietors,  known  as  the  Big  and 
Little  Tribes  of  Osage  Indians,  having  relinquished  their 
titles  to  all  lands  lying  east  of  a  due  south-and-north  line 
drawn  from  old  Fort  Clark  to  the  Arkansas,  in  1808,  as  stated 
heretofore,  this  left  a  strip  of  land  twenty-four  miles  in  width, 
lying  due  eastward  of  the  west  line  of  this  State,  and  running 
from  the  Missouri  River  to  the  Arkansas  River.  The  Indian 
title  to  this  strip  of  land  was  relinquished  by  them  and  ceded 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  by  the  terms  of  the 
treaty  of  Nampawarrah,  or  White  Plume,  of  date  June  3, 
1825.  From  these  Indian  tribes  the  Government  then  derived 
its  title  to  them,  and  not  until  then  did  the  United  .States,  as 
a  part  of  the  public  domain,  come  into  full  and  complete  pos- 
session, ownership,  and  control  of  the  lands  upon  which  Kansas 
City  now  stands.  This  strip  of  land  was  soon  opened  up  for 


446  RECOLLECTIONS 

entry,  purchase,  and  settlement.  Hundreds  of  hardy  pioneers, 
with  their  wives  and  children  were  waiting  on  the  border  line,, 
and  when  the  day  came  that  they  could  lawfully  do  so,  the?e 
men  here  made  the  first  great  "rush"  on  record  for  Indian 
lands. 

1826:  Jackson  County  was  organized  under  the  General 
Assembly  Act  of  date  December  21,  1826,  and  the  first  session 
of  its  county  court  was  held  at  Independence  on  July  2,  1827. 
But  prior  to  this  time  the  lands  now  embraced  within  the 
limits  of  this  county  had  by  law  been  theretofore  included 
within  the  borders  of  the  counties,  successively,  of  St.  Louis, 
Howard,  Cooper,  Lillard  (name  later  abolished),  Lafayette, 
and  finally  Jackson. 

1828 :  When  the  title  to  this  strip  of  land  was  fully  vested 
in  the  United  States  by  the  extinguishment  of  the  Indian  title: 
in  1825,  the  eastern  portion  of  Jackson  County  had  been  set- 
tled for  some  years;  as  early  as  1821  a  number  of  French- 
Canadian  trappers,  traders,  and  huntsmen  had  squatted  upon 
and  occupied  lands  along  the  Missouri  River  front;  but  the 
first  white  American  to  make  a  permanent  entry  of  and  settle- 
ment upon  lands  now  included  within  the  boundaries  of  Kan- 
sas City,  was  James  H.  McGee,  whose  patent  for  his  320 
acres  of  this  land  bears  date  November  14,  1828. 

1833 :  Under  a  grant  of  legislative  authority,  the  town. 
of  Westport,  now  within  and  a  part  of  Kansas  City,  was  estab- 
lished in  1833,  and  for  many  a  long  year  thereafter  the  few 
people  who  lived  in  the  straggling  hamlet  along  the  Missouri 
River  front,  and  at  the  steamboat  landing  here,  were  known- 
only  as  citizens  of  Westport  Landing. 

1839:  In  the  report  of  his  explorations  of  1673,  Mar- 
quette  first  mentions  the  Kansas  tribe  of  Indians  as  being  "on- 
the  Missouri,  beyond  the  Missouris  and  Osages,"  and  from, 


HISTORICAL   SKETCH  447 

that  tribe  the  Kansas  River  derived  its  name.  The  name  of 
tribe  and  river  was  both  spelled  and  pronounced  in  very  dn- 
ferent  ways  by  the  explorers,  but  Kansas  City  was  originally 
so  named;  to  perpetuate  both,  and  was  first  platted  as  the 
"Town  of  Kansas"  in  1839. 

1850:  On  February  4,  1850,  the  Jackson  County  court, 
by  its  order  of  record  entered  at  Independence,  first  formally 
and  duly  incorporated  the  "Town  of  Kansas,"  and  then  gave 
to  the  people,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Kansas  River,  their  first 
local  self-government. 

1853 :  By  a  special  Act  of  the  Missouri  Legislature,  duly 
adopted  on  February  22,  1853,  the  name  of  the  "Town  of 
Kansas"  was  changed  to  the  "City  of  Kansas,"  and  on  that 
day  we  first  became  an  incorporation  under  the  laws  of  this 
State.  Various  amendments  were  later  made  to  that  charter, 
and  by  the  first  freeholders'  charter,  adopted  by  our  people 
under  grant  of  constitutional  authority  in  1889,  the  name  was 
again  changed  from  the  "City  of  Kansas"  to  "Kansas  City."' 
But  for  many  long  years  now  this  city  has  properly  and  proud- 
ly borne  its  present  name  of  Kansas  City,  Missouri. 

1854:  It  may  again  be  here  noted  in  passing  that  all  that 
country  from  the  westward  line  of  Missouri  to  the  crest  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  was  and  officially  remained  unorganized 
"Indian  country"  up  to  1854.  Repeated  efforts  had  been  there- 
tofore made  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  to  segre- 
gate it  from  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  bills  had  been  'intro- 
duced at  Washington  to  make  it  all  into  one  Territory  under 
the  name  of  Platte  and  Nebraska ;  but  finally,  on  May  30,  1854, 
the  Congress  adopted  an  Act,  known  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world  as  "The  Kansas-Nebraska  Act,"  under  which 
these  two  were  created  and  erected  into  Territories  on  the 
same  day.  Kansas  became  a  State  of  the  American  Union 
on  January  29,  1861,  and  Nebraska  on  March  T.  iSfi-. 


448  RECOLLECTIONS 

In  the  "Historical  Sketch"  of  Kansas  City,  printed  as  a 
preface  to  our  annotated  charter  and  revised  ordinances  in 
1898,  appear  in  full  the  facts  relating  to  two  amusing  incidents 
of  that  which  might  have  been :  The  one  is  that  at  the  first 
platting  and  naming  of  this  city,  in  1839,  one  of  our  early  and 
wealthy  settlers,  who  always  signed  his  name  as  "Abraham 
Fonda,  Gentleman,"  because  he  was  not  a  working-man,  earn- 
estly desired  that  the  future  city  be  named  in  his  honor  as 
"Port  Fonda."  He  was  about  to  succeed  in  this  when,  un- 
fortunately for  his  fame,  he  became  involved  in  a  fierce  quar- 
rel with  another  part  owner  named  Henry  Jobe.  The  com- 
bined efforts  of  the  old  "Town  of  Kansas"  company  and 
Jobe's  threats  of  fist  and  shotgun  finally  prevailed  and  are 
responsible  for  our  present  name.  The  other  is  that  in  1855 
a  concerted  effort  was  ineffectually  made  to  cede  and  grant  all 
lands  lying  west  and  north  of  the  Big  Blue  River,  from  the 
point  at  which  that  historic  stream  crosses  the  Missouri- 
Kansas  line  near  the  ancient  town  called  "Santa  Fe,"  down 
to  its  mouth  on  the  Missouri,  to  the  then  Territory  of  Kansas. 
Had  the  former  scheme  won  out,  Kansas  City  would  now  be 
"Port  Fonda,"  and  had  the  second  won,  we  should  now  be  in 
and  a  part  of  Kansas. 

1909:  Through  all  the  seething  and  roar,  the  bustle  and 
the  hurry,  the  buying  and  building,  the  enlarging  and  prog- 
ress of  the  years  intervening  between  1839  and  1909,  Kansas 
City  has  ever  pursued  the  even  tenor  of  its  way,  the  Kansas 
City  spirit  pervading  city  and  country  alike ;  nothing  save 
an  invisible  line  divides  the  two  great  municipalities  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Kansas,  and  the  stranger  within  our  gates  would 
not  dream  of  its  existence;  while,  between  the  two  combined 
cities  and  their  suburbs,  we  now  have  a  population  of  half  a 
million  of  happy  and  prosperous  people,  all  hopefully  con- 


HISTORICAL   SKETCH  449 

fident  that  the  future  of  Kansas  City  will  be  even  more  glori- 
ous than  its  past. 


The  text  of  this  book  was  completed  in  1909,  but  publica- 
tion was  so  delayed  that  three  published  utterances  of  mine  in 
1910  are  here  inserted: 

REMARKS  ON  THE  PASSING  OF  MRS.  VAN  HORN,  1910. 

The  silver  cord  was  loosed  and  the  golden  bowl  broken 
when  the  devoted  helpmeet  of  my  friend,  Colonel  R.  T.  Van 
Horn,  passed  from  earth  in  July  last.  As  the  long-time  per- 
sonal friend  of  that  family,  I  answered  their  call  and,  among 
other  things,  spoke  the  few  words  of  an  old  neighbor: 

[Reprint  from  Kansas  City  Journal  of  July  27,  1910.] 

In  the  presence  of  that  natural  yet  mysterious  change  from 
this  life  to  the  next,  no  matter  when,  where,  or  how  it  comes, 
the  survivors  always  stand  face  to  face  with  one  more  human 
tragedy. 

But  in  now  bidding  good-bye  to  this  neighbor  and  friend, 
our  selfish  grief  for  our  own  loss  is  here  swallowed  up  in 
heartfelt  condolence  for  her  bereft  companion,  who  for  nearly 
sixty-two  years  was  the  honored  husband  of,  and  walked  and 
talked  with  her  whose  going  away  we  deeply  deplore,  and  whose 
gentle  memory  we  honor  and  revere;  for  now,  alone,  in  his 
eighty-seventh  year,  he  drains  the  bitterest  cup  that  can  touch 
the  lips  of  man.  Our  sympathy  goes  out,  too,  to  the  stricken 
son,  who  is  the  sole  survivor  of  her  four  stalwart  boys,  and  to 
her  other  kindred,  as  well  as  to  the  legion  of  friends  of  this 
good  woman. 

Strong  and  vigorous  of  mind  and  body,  clear  of  head,  and 
warm  of  heart,  without  the  shadow  of  ostentation  or  parade, 
the  people  of  this  community  for  fifty-five  years  have  known 


450  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  felt  that  in  her  forceful  personality,  gentle  manners,  intel- 
ligent and  broad  charity,  the  life  and  example  of  Mrs.  Van 
Horn  have  at  once  proven  a  blessing  and  a  benediction  to  all 
who  knew  her;  while  as  wife  and  mother,  neighbor  and  friend, 
she  daily  exemplified  the  attributes  of  a  model  of  the  truest 
and  best  in  womanhood. 

To  her  memory,  as  well  as  to  truth,  it  is  but  simple  justice 
to  say  here  that  for  many  years  Mrs>  Van  Horn  always  an- 
swered with  an  emphatic  "Yes"  the  world-old  inquiry  pro- 
pounded away  back  in  the  Book  of  Job:  "If  a  man  die,  shall 
he  live  again?"  In  this  circle  of  her  friends,  I  violate  no  con- 
fidence in  the  mention  of  this  personal  incident :  When  I  was 
ill  down  at  Washington,  a  decade  ago,  she  and  I  there  had  a 
long  neighborly  talk  about  the  hereafter.  That  which  as  clear- 
ly as  the  sunshine  at  noonday  presented  itself  to  her  as  con- 
tinuing in  the  beyond  the  present  existence  in  a  natural  way, 
to  me  seemed  a  dim  and  unknowable  mystery.  But  ill  her 
quiet,  motherly  way  and  without  the  slightest  intent  to  pros- 
elyte, she  then  mentioned  as  plain,  simple  facts:  That  her 
husband  was  brought  up  in  the  Presbyterian  faith  and  she  in 
the  Methodist;  but  so  exalting  were  their  solace  and  pleas- 
ure in  communing  with  children  and  friends  who  had  preceded 
them  to  the  Spirit  World,  that  she  blessed  the  day  when  both 
had  embraced  the  newer  cult,  and  added :  "We  would  to-day 
be  most  miserable  if  this  consolation  were  not  ours." 

Comprehending  nothing  beyond  Nature;  knowing  noth- 
ing of  future  life,  following  neither  creed  nor  dogma,  conced- 
ing to  others  the  absolute  right  to  believe  whatsoever  they 
may,  to  me  the  faith  and  belief  of  Mrs.  Van  Horn  is  to-day 
as  sacred  as  any  other;  for  long  ago  I  learned  that  it  was 
neither  safe,  nor  sane,  nor  tolerant  for  me  to  question  the  truth 
of  any  belief  simply  because  I  did  not  understand  it.  So,  in 
this  respect,  but  one  proposition  now  seems  clear,  and  that  is, 


PASSING  OF  MRS.  VAN  HORN  451 

that  any  faith,  hope,  or  belief  as  to  the  hereafter,  that  satisfies 
the  longing  of  any  one  human  soul,  is  the  highest  and  best 
religion  for  that  particular  individual. 

At  a  "Van  Horn  night,"  held  in  the  Greenwood  Club  here 
some  years  ago,  both  the  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Van  Horn  were 
present.  Many  old-time  friends  spoke  at  length,  and  there  re- 
viewed the  achievements  of  Colonel  Van  Horn,  who  in  his 
long,  busy,  useful  career  as  the  owner  and  editor  of  the  Kan  as 
City  Journal,  commander  in  the  Union  Army  during  our  Civil 
War,  State  and  national  legislator,  and  as  a  public  official  at 
home,  had  accomplished  so  much  for  the  great  West  that  he 
was  justly  recognized  as  our  foremost  citizen. 

In  his  short,  clear,  characteristic  response  to  all  this,  the 
Colonel  modestly  disclaimed  especial  personal  credit,  and  then 
added :  "Whatever  of  honor  or  praise  is  clue  for  all  these  re- 
sults, must  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  when  absent  from 
here,  I  could  always  devote  all  my  time  to  the  duty  before  me, 
because  I  always  knew  that  all  tvas  going  well  at  home."  \ 
loftier  tribute  to  a  noble,  patient,  faithful,  and  helpful  wife, 
no  man  .ever  paid  to  a  woman.  Her  body  now  rests  in  peace 
in  this  casket,  and  with  her,  throughout  all  the  ages  that  yet 
shall  be.  all  will  still  go  well  at  home. 


SLAVERY,  ITS  ORIGIN,  EVOLUTION,  AND  END. 
[Reprint  from  the  Canon  City  Record,  1910.] 

EMANCIPATION  DAY,  August  4,   1910. 

Miss    I'iryinui    Rudolph.    Canon    City,    Colorado. 

MY  DEAR  GRANDDAUGHTER: — Now  that  your  mother  and 
you  are  away  from  lu,me  on  your  summer  vacation  among  the 
Rockies,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  you  will  there  get  and 
keep  in  your  little  head  very  much  of  the  many  useful  items 
of  the  fast-fading  history  of  your  country;  but  as  this  is  Em.i  i- 


452  RECOLLECTIONS 

cipation  Day,  and  now  that  I  think  of  it  and  have  the  time,  I 
here  jot  down  for  future  reference  a  few  facts  not!  generally 
recognized,  as  to  one  important  question  with  which  you  ought 
to  be  perfectly  familiar  in  the  years  that  yet  shall  be — negro 
slavery : 

The  first  permanent  European  settlement  on  American 
soil  was  established  at  Jamestown,  Virginia,  in  1607.  At  and 
prior  to  that  date  the  English  law  had  made  over  one  hun- 
dred offenses  capital  crimes,  the  punishment  for  which  was 
either  death  or  banishment,  at  the  pleasure  of  the  sovereign. 
Soon  after  this  settlement  at  Jamestown,  the  British  Crown 
banished  to  the  Virginia  Colony  three  ship-loads  of  these  con- 
victs, who  were  adjudged  guilty  of  trivial  offenses,  and  those 
who  came  over  on  the  first  ship  were  then  styled  the  First 
Families  of  Virginia.  So  to-day  we  still  speak  of  the  F.  F. 
V.'s  in  a  proud  sort  of  way,  without  considering  the  fact  that 
originally  those  who  called  themselves  F.  F.  V.'s  were  not 
exactly  the  highest  and  best  people  of  earth.  Of  course,  no 
such  bar  sinister  rested  upon  the  escutcheon  of  the  great  ma- 
jority of  our  early-day  Colonists,  for  they  were  stainless;  bit 
the  mists  of  Time  obscure  -some  facts. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1619  a  Dutch  ship  landed  at  James- 
town a  cargo  of  twenty  African  slaves,  and  that  was  the  be- 
ginning of  negro  slavery  on  American  soil.  l(VO'n  Jamestown 
this  peculiar  institution  spread  throughout  the  Colonies  to  such 
an  extent  that  when  our  Federal  Constitution  was  adopted  in 
1789,  negro  slavery  was  lawfully  recognized  in  every  btate 
in  the  Union.  Indeed,  the  only  part  of  this  country  where  such 
slavery  was  not  lawful  at  first  was  in  the  far  south  Colony 
of  Georgia.  That  Colony  was  originally  settled  by  ex-convicts 
and  malefactors,  but  among  the  wise  and  humane  laws  there 
enacted  under  the  direction  of  Governor  Oglethorpe,  was  a 
law  which  absolutely  prohibited  negro  slavery  in  Georgia,  and 


SILVERY   LETTER  463 

from  the  beginning  up  to  1752  the  sweet  sunshine  of  heaven 
rested  on  no  Georgia  slave.  Then  the  law  was  repealed  and 
the  people  of  that  Colony  (and  later  State)  owned  negro  slaves 
thenceforth  to  the  taking  effect  of  Lincoln's  great  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  on  January  i,  1863. 

Meantime  many  great  and  good  people  of  the  South  grew 
weary  of  the  burden  of  slavery,  and  the  Colony  of  Virginia, 
through  its  House  of  Burgesses,  protested  twenty-three  dif- 
ferent times  against  the  British  Crown  permitting  the  importa- 
tion of  other  and  further  negro  slaves  into  that  Colony.  These 
repeated  protests  were  unheeded ;  the  profits  of  the  slave  trade 
were  so  enormous  that  despite  the  passage  of  Acts  of  our 
Congress  against  the  further  importation  of  slaves,  that  trade 
continued  up  to  the  Civil  War,  beginning  in  1861. 

Born  and  reared  among  the  slaves  of  Virginia  and  their 
owners,  spending  much  time  since  1861  among  the  people  of 
all  our  States  in  the  South,  I  know  that  away  back  in  slavery 
days  the  whites  of  that  section  of  our  country  did  not  regard 
as  an  unmixed  blessing  or  evil  the  institution  referred  to. 
From  one  generation  to  another  slaves  were  handed  down  like 
other  personal  property,  and  thousands  inherited  their  blacks 
who  hated  slavery.  But  what  could  they  do?  Laws  provided, 
and  justly  so  too,  that  if  and  when  an  owner  freed  a  5 live, 
then  that  the  person  and  property  of  the  former  owner  wa; 
bound  for  the  future  conduct  of  the  manumitted  slave ;  he  must 
give  bond  that  the  slave  should  not  become  a  public  charge, 
while  the  former  slave  in  most  cases  could  not  and  would  not 
properly  care  for  his  future.  In  that  day  slaves  were  worth 
on  the  market  from  a  few  dollars  up  into  the  thousands  of  dol- 
lars, and  therefore  self-interest,  if  not  humanity,  required  and 
demanded  their  fair  and  humane  treatment.  So  that  in  mosi 
instances  the  negro  was  better  off  then  than  now.  If  sick. 


454  RECOLLECTIONS 

;t)lv? -master  fed,  clothed  and  doctored  him,  and  looked  after, 
Beared  and  thought  for  him,  in  both  sickness  and  health. 
.  -  7,-'  Business  interests  and  dollars,  not  sentiment,  dominated 
the  earlier  settlers  of  America,  and  the  people  there  were  not 
long  i  i  learning  that  neither  cotton  nor  sugar  cane  could  be 
grown  at  a  profit  in  the  far  northern  States,  and  for  that 
reason  alone  it  did  not  pay  to  there  own  and  work  negro 
slaves,  and  slavery  was  abolished  prospectively.  Our  God- 
fearing Northerner  did  not  emancipate  and  thus  free  his 
slaves,  but  enacted  laws  providing  that  on  and  after  a  certain 
d,ate  slavery  should  not  be  lawful  in  the  particular  State,  and 
then  between  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  Act  and  its  going 
into  effect,  piously  and  prayerfully  sold  his  slaves*  on  auction- 
blocks  down  South.  That  is  why  and  how  the  institution  of 
slavery  ceased  to  exist  in  our  Northern  States.  Only  the  few 
ever  know  or  understand  history.  But  the  basic  error  is  that 
both  sides  present  this  question  with  such  consummate  skill  as 
,to  make  the  exception  seem  the  rule.  It 's  always  easy  to 
fool  people  who  want  to  be  misled. 

When  our  Big  .War  commenced  by  the  firing  on  Fort 
Sumter  on  April  12,  1861,  slavery  was  not  only  lawful,  but 
actually  existed,  as  I  now  recall  history,  in  fifteen  of  our  South- 
ern States,  but  only  eleven  of  those  States  seceded  from  the 
Federal  Union— Missouri,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  and  Delaware 
retaining  their  slave  property  and  remaining  in  the  Union. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  upon  its  face  and  by  its 
express  language  affected  only  the  slaves  in  those  States  and 
parts  of  States  which  on  January  i,  1863,  "were  in  actual 
rebellion  against  the  United  States."  So  that  it  did  not  touch 
slave  property  in  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Delaware,  Maryland, 
nor  in  that  which  is  now  West  Viriginia,  nor  certain  parishes 
in  Louisiana,  etc.  In  all  these  border  slave  States  that  institu- 
tion remained  lawful  until  within  their  respective  sovereignties 


GILBOA  REUNION  SPEECH  455 

slavery  was  there  abolished,  beginning  with  the  State  of  Mary- 
land on  the  first  day  of  November,  1864,  followed  by  Missouri 
on  January  n,  1865;  while  freedom  did  not  come  to  all  the 
slaves  of  all  our  States  until  the  proclaimed  adoption  of  the 
1 3th  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  on 
December  18,  1865. 

Now,  if  you  will  study  and  make  all  this  your  own,  you 
will  know  more  about  the  history  of  the  slavery  question  than 
most  of  the  present  generation  ever  dream  of  knowing. 

Adios.  H.  C.  McD. 


GILBOA  CHURCH,  FAMILY  REUNION,  1910. 
[Reprint  from  Fairmont  West  Virginian,  September  17,  1910.] 

Judge  Henry  Clay  McDougal,  of  Kansas  City,  who  was  a 
distinguished  visitor  at  the  reunion  of  the  McDougal,  Dudley, 
and  Boggess  families  at  Gilboa,  Wednesday,  gave  the  principal 
address  of  the  day,  dwelling  upon  an  historical  sketch  of  the 
families  assembled.  The  address  is  given  below : 

My  Kindred  and  Friends: 

Back  again  to  the  land  of  my  birth,  standing  once  more 
among  the  kindred,  neighbors,  and  friends  of  my  early  years, 
whom  I  left  for  the  Big  War  nearly  half  a  century  ago,  there 
comes  to  me  now  the  impulse  to  quote  the  words  of  Rob  Roy, 
that  other  wandering  and  somewhat  lawless  son  of  old  Scotia : 
"My  foot  is  on  my  native  heath,  and  my  name  is  MacGregor." 

Then,  again,  the  truth  and  the  wisdom  of  a  familiar  say- 
ing of  the  Nazarene  here  and  now  appeals  to  me  as  never  be- 
fore, "A  prophet  is  not  without  honor,  save  in  his  own  country, 
and  in  his  own  house."  For  in  this  presence  I  am  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  my  personal  status  is  here  like  unto  that  of  my 
lawyer  friend  Miller,  of  Indianapolis.  When  Benjamin  Har- 
rison was  inaugurated  as  our  President,  one  of  his  first  .official 
acts  was  the  appointment  of  his  old  law  partner  as  the  Attor- 


456  RECOLLECTIONS 

ney-General  of  the  United  States.  Soon  after  qualifying,  Mil- 
ler returned  to  his  old  home  in  Pennsylvania  as  I  have  come 
back  to  mine  in  West  Virginia,  and  later  on  told  this  story  of 
his  visit:  At  the  little  station  not  many  miles  over  the  hills 
from  his  childhood  home,  General  Miller,  an  utter  stranger 
and  in  a  strange  land,  found  that  an  old  fanner  was 
going  in  his  wagon  over  near  his  father's  farm.  Over 
the  mud  they  rolled  in  silence  for  a  time,  when  this  con- 
versation occurred  between  them:  "By  the  way,"  said 
Miller,  "an  old  farmer  named  Miller  used  to  live  in  this 
neighborhood,  didn't  he?"  The  farmer  answered,  "Yas." 
"The  old  man  had  a  lot  of  boys,  didn't  he?"  "Yas;  three 
or  four."  Then,  with  heart  swelling  with  honest  pride, 
Miller  inquired:  "Wasn't  one  of  these  boys  lately  ap- 
pointed to  some  high  office?"  "Yas;  we  heerd  so."  "Well, 
what  did  the  old  neighbors  say  when  they  heard  the  news  of 
tliis  appointment?"  "They  didn't  say  nuthin';  they  jist  laft!" 

But  seriously,  now:  As  the  devout  Mohammedan  turns 
his  face  toward  his  shrine  in  offering  up  his  daily  prayers,  and 
fails  not  to  make  pilgrimages  to  his  Mecca,  so,  no  matter  where 
he  may  rove,  the  heart,  face,  and  pilgrimages  of  the  native  of 
old  Marion  County  are  always  turning  backward  to  his  child- 
hood home.  Born  and  reared  just  across  the  hill  from  this  old 
church  and  grove,  my  early  years  were  here  passed  among 
you,  and  when  comes  the  closing  scene,  no  doubt  it  will  be  said 
of  me,  as  long  ago  it  was  said  of  bluff  old  Falstaff :  "He  bab- 
bles of  green  fields."  This  great  creation  of  greater  Shake- 
speare as  he  lay  dying,  talked  of  the  fields  of  old  England;  but' 
with  love,  affection,  and  reverence,  my  own  thoughts  may  then 
wander  back  to  the  trees  and  the  "green  fields"  of  old  Marion 
County,  as  these  grow  and  flourish  in  heaven's  sweet  sunshine 
around  old  Gilboa  on  Dunkard  Mill  Run. 

As  blood  is  still  thicker  than  water,  it  is  but  natural  that 
the  descendants  of  the  three  families  whose  lives  and  achieve- 


REUNION  SPEECH  457 

ments  we  here  celebrate  insist  that  the  clans  Dudley,  Boggess, 
and  McDougal  originally  stood  high  above  all  others  on  the 
roli  of  fame  on  Dunkard  Mill  Run;  but  the  call  of  the  roll  of 
those  who  drank  the  waters  of  this  Run  half  a  century  ago, 
when  I  was  a  young,  barefoot,  freckled-face  boy  and  got  stone- 
bruises  on  my  feet  and  fought  with  other  belligerents  of  this 
entire  scope  of  country,  would  be  found  to  include  such  other 
good  men  and  true  as  Morrow,  Morris,  Martin,  Straight,  Mor- 
gan, Walmsley,  Wilcox,  Atha,  Toothman,  Robey,  Brown, 
Hawkins,  Poling,  Davis,  Laidley,  Ice,  Gribble,  Pitzer,  Evans. 
Sharp,  Miller,  Prichard,  Youst,  Yeach,  Wilson,  Sturm,  Bil- 
lingsley,  McVicker,  Fawcett,  Jones,  and  Upton. 

The  families  of  Dudley,  Boggess,  and  McDougal  of  their 
slender  frontier  stores  contributed  their  full  quota  of  money 
or  money's  worth  to  the  building  of  the  first  Gilboa  Methodist 
Church  on  these  grounds ;  and  only  a  few  days  ago,  down  near 
Fairmont,  my  aunt,  Mary  Catherine  Clayton,  showed  me  an 
old  booklet,  in  which  was  written,  in  the  fine  but  elegant  hand- 
writing of  my  great-grandfather,  Lindsay  Boggess,  accurate 
accounts  of  the  money,  labor,  "meal  or  malt"  of  the  early 
pioneers  who  also  contributed  their  full  share  to  the  erection 
of  that  church  on  May  I,  1814,  and  among  these  other  earnest 
woodsmen  I  find  the  names  written  of  many  other  families, 
and  among  them  can  there  to-day  be  seen  the  names  of  Amos, 
Brown,  Boor,  Campbell,  Clayton,  Dawson,  Davis,  Dragoo, 
Freeland,  Foreman,  Fletcher,  Fluharty,  Huffman,  Hall,  Hig- 
ginbotham,  Ice,  Jones,  Kearns,  Laidley,  Megill,  Morgan,  Mer- 
rill, Martin,  Metheny,  Moran,  Miller,  Prichard,  Price,  Parker, 
Pitzer,  Prickett,  Quigley,  Rice,  Shackelford,  Squires,  Snider, 
Satterfield,  Straight,  Thompson,  Toothman,  Upton,  Willey, 
Wilson,  and  Youst. 

A  few  words  now  about  the  early  history  of  the  three 

families,  Dudley,  Boggess,  and  McDougal: 

The  house  of  Dudley  originated,  so  far  as  history  con- 
tains its  record,  at  the  town  of  Dud  in  England  in  the  seventh 


458  RECOLLECTIONS 

century,  and  since  then  until  their  descendants  came  to  the 
American  Colonies,  through  the  veins  of  the  Dudleys  there 
coursed  the  purest,  tenderest  blood  of  the  nobility  of  merry  old 
England.  Men  of  peace  as  they  always  were,  some  of  the 
earlier  Dudleys  were  not  averse  to  the  conflicts  of  their  'times, 
but  the  only  real  hard  fighters  of  that  family  I  ever  knew  per- 
sonally were  Fleming  Dudley,  who  presides  over  this  reunion, 
and  my  great-uncle,  Samuel  Dudley,  who  on  this  Run,  away 
back  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  intermarried  with  and  be- 
came the  husband  of  Margaret  ("Peggy")  McDougal,  a  sister 
of  my  grandfather,  John  McDougal.  Samuel  Dudley  died  at 
a  ripe  old  age  near  here,  and  was  the  only  sailor  and  soldier 
of  the  American  Revolutionary  War  under  the  command  of 
George  Washington  I  recollect  ever  to  have  seen.  Just  what 
ones  of  the  Dudleys  first  came  to  America,  or  when  or  where 
they  located,  I  do  not  know;  but  it  is  certain  that  at  an  early 
date  more  than  one  male  member  of  that  family  came  from 
England  to  the  Colony  of  Virginia. 

The  Boggess  family  originally  came  from  Spain,  where 
the  ancient  family  name  is  still  preserved  and  still  spelled 
"Boggio." 

It  is  probable  that  those  of  the  name  who  first  came  to  the 
American  shores  for  a  time  sojourned  in  Wales,  but  the  first 
ancestor  I  have  been  able  to  definitely  locate  was  a  pleasure- 
loving,  cock-fighting,  horse-racing  planter  of  Fairfax  County 
in  the  Colony  of  Virginia  named  Robert  Boggess,  who  was  in- 
dicted, along  with  George  Washington  and  others,  in  1760, 
at  Fairfax  Court  House,  for  failing  to  return  for  taxation  to 
the  Colony's  assessor  his  "wheeled  vehickles."  From  this 
Robert  Boggess,  our  direct  descent  is  through  his  son  Henry, 
then  Lindsay,  then  my  grandfather,  Henry,  and  last  my 
mother,  whose  maiden  name  was  Elvira  Ann  Boggess. 

The  clan  McDougal  originated  in  the  Highlands  of  Scot- 
land, where  at  the  dawn  of  history  the  name  was  spelled 
"Dhu-Gal." 


GILBOA  REUNION  SPEECH  45(j 

The  family  then  owned  all  the  islands  off  the  west  coast 
of  that  country,  but  in  some  way  later  possessed  all  lands  on 
that  coast,  and  still  later  at  one  time,  about  1306,  fought  with 
and  overthrew  King  Robert  Bruce  and  for  a  short  time,  through 
their  chieftains,  ruled  the  whole  of  Scotland;  then  they  were 
in  turn  overthrown  by  the  Bruce,  who  killed  all  its  clansmen 
capable  of  bearing  arms  save  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight, 
and  since  that  day  the  clan  has  not  been  an  important  factor 
in  that  or  any  other  government. 

Their  tartan  is  still  preserved,  as  is  also  the  coat  of  arms 
of  the  clan,  which  bears  the  Latin  legend,  "Vincere  vel  Mori." 
Liberally  translated,  this  motto  means,  "We  conquer  or  die." 
In  the  sixty-five  years  of  my  life  I've  known  many  McDou^als, 
but  never  knew  one  that  wouldn't  rather  "conquer"  than  "die." 
Their  determination  and  stubbornness  have  always  been  pro- 
verbial— a  family  failing. 

About  1770  the  church  government  of  the  District  of 
Lome  in  the  Scottish  Highlands  sent  from  there  to  a  small' 
flock  of  Presbyterians  who  had  theretofore  settled  on  the  Mo- 
nongahela  River,  in  the  Colony  of  Virginia,  a  talented  young 
preacher  named  William  McDougal,  to  administer  to  the  spirit- 
ual wants  of  these  settlers.  William  McDougal  there  married 
a  Miss  Brand  and  there  his  two  children  were  born.  He  was 
my  great-grandfather.  His  oldest  child  was  John  McDougal,' 
my  grandfather,  born  February  29,  1776;  and  his  daughter 
was  "Peggy,"  who  later  married  Samuel  Dudley;  and  both 
these  children  were  born  at  what  is  now  Morgantown  in  this 
State,  and  later  lived  on  Dunkard  Mill  Run. 

The  Dudleys  were  on  Dunkard  Mill  Run  when  my  grand- 
father McDougal  came  here  in  1798  and  Lindsay  Boggess  iir 
1810.  For  generations  the  McDougals  had  been  Presbyterians 
in  the  Highlands  and  the  Boggesses  were  Church  of  England 
people  in  Fairfax  County  in  Virginia.  But  at  that  early  day 
they  found  here  neither  a  Presbyterian  nor  an  Episcopalian- 
all  were  Methodists.  Wisely  they  waived  their  church  pref- 


460  RECOLLECTIONS 

erences  and  joined  with  the  Dudleys  and  other  frontier  neigh- 
bors in  this  vicinity,  and  with  them  here  organized  this  con- 
gregation just  a  century  ago.  At  first  they  then  met  around 
at  the  homes  of  the  pioneer  neighbors;  but  worshipped  here 
after  the  completion  of  the  original  old  log  church  in  1814 — by 
them  called  "The  Gilboa  Meeting-House."  That  was  the  first 
congregation  organized  and  this  the  first  church  erected  within 
the  present  limits  of  Marion  County.  My  great-grandfather, 
Lindsay  Boggess,  then  gave  to  this  church  these  grounds,  in- 
cluding your  beautiful  grove  and  the  big  spring. 

As  a  boy,  I  was  present  in  1858  with  my  two  grandfathers 
and  my  father,  John  Fletcher  McDougal,  when  the  original 
old  log  building  was  razed  for  the  erection  of  this  edifice  on 
its  site,  and  recall  now  that  they,  with  Uncle  EHas  Dudley  and 
other  old-timers,  then  told  me  the  early  history  of  the  Gilboa 
congregation ;  and  among  many  other  things,  said  that  Grand- 
father John  McDougal  was  here  your  first  class-leader  for 
thirty-five  consecutive  years,  always  came  on  horseback  across 
the  hill,  attended  divine  services  with  the  regularity  of  clock- 
work, and  in  all  that  time  never  once  failed  to  hitch  his  saddle- 
horse  to  a  limb  of  the  same  oak  tree  in  this  grove.  In  the  race 
of  life  the  people  of  this  community  thus  started  right;  and 
I  am  glad  to  see  that  in  this  regard  the  generation  of  to-day 
treads  in  the  footsteps  of  our  ancestors.  So  it  does  me  good 
to  here  and  now  join  in  this  first  family  reunion  with  so  many 
hundreds  of  other  descendants  of  the  founders  of  old  Gilboa. 
May  the  day  never  come  when  you  shall  cease  to  obey  the 
farewell  admonition  of  the  great  Law-giver  to  the  children  of 
Israel :  "Remember  the  days  of  old,  consider  the  years  of 
many  generations."  To  annually  consecrate  your  lives  anew 
to  cherishing  the  memory  and  emulating  the  virtues  of  the 
early  settlers  of  Dunkard  Mill  Run  can  bring  you  nothing  but 
good,  for  in  their  lofty  example  we  all  "have  a  goodly 
heritage." 


INDEX. 

A 

Arthur,  Chester  A.,  New  York  City 97 

ft 

Bender,  Harry  A.,  Kansas  City,  Mo 286 

Birch,  James  H.,  Sr.,  Plattsburg,  Mo 36 

Bittinger,   John   L.,   St.  Joseph,   Mo 252 

Elaine,  James  G.,  Augusta,  Me 1 10 

Blodgett,  Wells  H.,  St.  Louis,  Mo 46 

Boggess,   Caleb,   Clarksburg,   W.   Va 16 

Boggess,  Henry,  Rivesville,  W.  Va 289 

Brisbane,  Albert,   Paris,   France 295 

Broaddus,  Elbridge  J.,  Chillicothe,  Mo 22 

Brown,  Stephen  S.,  St.  Joseph,  Mo 39 

"Buffalo  Bill"  (Cody),  Cody,  Wyoming 312 

Burnes,  James  N.,  St.  Joseph,  Mo 41 

C 

Campbell,  Archibald  W.,  Wheeling,  W.  Va 253 

Carhart,  Charles  E.,  Chicago,  111 304 

Carlisle,  John  S.,  Clarksburg,  W.  Va 1 14 

Cavanaugh,  Richard,  White  Oaks,  N.  Mex 308 

Chandler,  Jeff.,  Los  Angeles,  Calif 42 

Clay,  Cassius  M.,  White  Hall,  Ky 117 

Clemens,  Sherrard,  Wheeling,  W.  Va 1 19 

Cleveland,  Grover,  Princeton,  N.  J 97 

Coghlan,    Joseph    B.,    United  States  Navy 168 

Compton,  William  B.,  Harrisonburg,  Va 171 

Comstock,  Charles  G.,  Albany,  Mo 313 

Craddock,  George  W.,  Frankfort,  Ky 62 

Crittenden,  Thomas  T.,  Kansas  City,  Mo 120 

461 


462  INDEX 

D 

Davis,  Jefferson,  Biloxi,  Miss 124. 

Dean,  Henry  Clay,  Brisbane  vs 302 

Devere,  William,  Denver,  Colo 21 

Dockery,  Alexander  M.,  Gallatin,  Mo 125 

Doniphan,  Alexander  W.,  Richmond,   Mo 37 

Douglas,  H.  Kyd.,  Hagerstown,  Md 68 

Drake,  Charles  D.,  St.  Louis,  Mo 47 

Dudley,   Boyd,   Gallatin,   Mo.!. .  .  .  .  20 

Dunn,  George  W.,  Richmond,  Mo. 37 

E. 
English,  Thomas  Dunn,  Newark,  N.  J 323 

F 

Field,  Eugene,  Chicago,   111 278 

Finkelnberg,  Gustavus  A.,  St.  Louis,  Mo 48 

Fleming,  A.  Brooks,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 16 

Foreword 7 

G 

Garfield,   James   A.,    Mentor,    Ohio 96 

Gilboa  Church,  Reunion  Speech 455 

Goff,  Nathan,  Clarksburg,  W.  Va I    16 

Gould,  Ashley  M.,  Washington,  D.  C 81 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  New  York  City 94 

H 

Hagans,  John  Marshall,  Morgantown,  W.  Va 17 

Hagerman,  Frank,  Kansas  City,  Mo 24 

Hale,   John   B.,   Carrollton,    Mo 22 

Hall,  Williard  P.,  St.  Joseph,  Mo .  43 

Halpine,  Charles  G.,  New  York  City .275  . 

Hardwicke,  Samuel,  Liberty,  Mo.  .....; 28 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  Indianapolis,  Ind .  . .          .  - 103 

Harrison,  William  A.,  Clarksburg,  W.  Va 17 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  Fremont,  Ohio. 96 

Haymond,  Alpheus  F.,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 15 

Haymond,  Thomas  S.,  Fairmont,  W    Va 142- 


INDEX  463 

Hewitt,  John  Young,  White  Oaks,  X.  M:x 71 

Historical  Sketch,  Kansas  City,   Mo 430 

Hitchcock,  Henry,  St.  Louis,  Mo 48 

Hough,   Warwick,   St.   Louis,    Mo 48 

Howard,  Frederick,  Kansas  City,  Mo 325 

Howe,  Edgar  W.,  Atchison,  Kan 345 

Hubbard,  Elbert,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y 347 

Hunt,  Robert  Henry,  Kansas  City,  Mo 174 

1 

Ingalls,  John  James,  Atchison,  Kan 133 

Introduction, 9 

J 

Jackson,  John  J.,  Parkersburg,  W.  Va 18 

Jewett,  David  J.  M.  A.,  Capitan,  N.  Mex 350 

Johnson,  Andrew,  Greenville,  Tenn 92 

Johnston,  Elizabeth  Bryant,  Washington,  D.  C 355 

Johnston,  Frances  Benjamin,  Washington,  D.  C 359 

Johnston,  Sanders  Walker,  Washington,  D.  C 82 

Joseph,  Chief  Nez  Perces,  Oklahoma " 354 

K 

Kansas   City,    Historical    Sketch   of 430 

Kelley,  Benjamin  F.,  Wheeling,  W.  Va 176 

Kidwell,  Zedekiah,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 142 

King,  Austin  A.,  Richmond,  Mo 37 

Krauthoff,  Louis  C.,  New  York  City 75 

T. 

Leahy,  T.  John,  Pawhuska,  Okla 78 

Lee.  Fitzhugh,  Richmond,  Va 181 

Leopard,  John  A.,  Gallatin,  Mo 21 

Leopard   Memorial  Address 421 

Lincoln,    Moses   and 412 

Lindsay,  William,  Frankfort,  Ky 63 

Loan,  Ben,  St.  Joseph,  Mo 45 

Looking   Backward, 

Low,  Marcus  A.,  Topeka,  Kan • 


464  INDEX 

M 

Majors,  Patrick  Upshaw,  Frankfort,  Ky 64 

Mason,  John  W.,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 16 

Martin,  Ben.  F.,  Farmington,  W.  Va 142 

Maulsby,  Thomas  A.,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 196 

McClellan,  Emma  Kelly,  Crary,  N.  Dak 361 

McComas,   Louis  E.,   Hagerstown,   Md 68 

McCrary,  George  W.,  Kansas  City,  Mo 27 

McCullough,  Joseph    B.,  St.  Louis,  Mo 253 

McDougal,  John  F.,  Bancroft,  Mo 364 

McFerran,  James,  Colorado  Springs,  Colo 18 

McGee,  Joseph  H.,  Gallatin,  Mo 185 

McKinley,  William,  Canton,  Ohio 106 

Meade,  Alfred,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 367 

Miller,  George  E.,  Fort  Worth,  Tex 80 

Miller,  Joaquin,  Oakland,  Calif 280 

Morgan,  William  S.,  Rivesville,  W.  Va 141 

Moses   and   Lincoln 405 

Mulligan,  James  A.,  Chicago,  111 200 

N 

Noble,  John  W.,  St.  Louis,  Mo 49 

Norton,  Elijah  H.,  Platte  City,  Mo 34 

O 
Oh-lo-hah-wah-la,  Pawhuska,  Okla : 372 

P 

Peckham,  Wheeler,  New  York  City 75 

Peery,  Stephen,  Trenton,  Mo 54 

Peters,  Mason  S.,  Argentine,  Kan 142 

Philips,  John  F.,  Kansas  City,  Mo 24 

Pickett,  La  Salle  Corbell,  Washington,  D.  C 375 

Pierpont,  Francis  H.,  Fairmont,  W.  Va 144 

Pitt,  John  E.,  Platte  City,  Mo 35 

R 

Ray,  Robert  D.,  Carrollton,  Mo 21 

Reed,  Thomas  B.,  Portland,   Me • 149 


INDEX  465 

Richardson,  Samuel  A.,  Gallatin,  Mo 20 

Riley,    James    Whitcomb,    Indianapolis,  I  ml 276 

Rombauer,  Roderick  E.,  St.  Louis,  Mo .'   49 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  Oyster  Bay,  N.  Y 109 

Root,  Elihu,  New  York  City 76 

Rossington,  William  H.,  Topeka,  Kan 60 

Rudolph,  Virginia  (Slavery  Letter),  Kansas  City,  Mo 451 

Ryan,  Abram  J.,  Mobile,  Ala 278 

s 

Schenck,  Robert  C.,  Dayton,  Ohio 204 

Schley,  William  W.,  Hagerstown,  Md 67 

Shanklin,  John  H.,  Trenton,  Mo 49 

Sheetz,  Frank,  Chillicothe,  Mo 23 

Shelby,  Jo  O.,  Adrian,  Mo 205 

Sherman,  William    T.,  United  States  Army 161 

Sherwood,  Thomas  A.,  Springfield,  Mo 39 

Showalter,  John   H.,   Fremont,    Neb 211 

Simpson,  Jerry,   Wichita,   Kan 152 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  Crawfordville,  Ga 153 

Stone,  William  Joel,  Jefferson  City,  Mo 154 

Storrs,  Emery  A.,  Chicago,  111 55 

Stringfellow,  Ben.  F.,  Atchison,  Kan 60 

Switzler,  William  F.,  Columbia,  Mo ' 377 

Swope,  Thomas  H.,  Kansas  City,  Mo 378 

T 

Taft,  William  H.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio 109 

Thompson,  Seymour  D.,  St.  Louis,  Mo 379 

Thome,  Joshua,  Kansas  City,  Mo 242 

Tichenor,  Charles  O.,  Kansas  City,  Mo 23 

Torrance,  Ell,  Minneapolis,  Minn 68 

U 

Ulrick,  George  L.,  Carrizozo,  N.  Mex 383 

"Uncle  Watty,"   Fairmont,  W.   Va 39$ 

Usher,  John  P.,  Lawrence,  Kan 61 


466  INDEX 

V 

Vance,  Reuben  A.,  Cleveland,   Ohio .  386 

Van  Horn,  Robert  T.,   Kansas  City,   Mo .....255 

Van  Horn,  Mrs.  R.  T.   (Funeral  Oration),  Kansas  City, 

,    Mo .449 

Vories,  Henry  M.,  St.  Joseph,  Mo ;\ .". 45 

W 

Wagner,  David,  Canton,  Mo 21 

Ware,  Eugene  F.,  Kansas  City,  Kan 394 

Warner,   William,   Kansas   City,    Mo , .  156 

Whitman,  Walt,  Camden,  N.  J. .  . 280 

Wilcox,  Ella  Wheeler,  New  York  City 279 

Wilder,  Daniel  Webster,  Hiawatha,  Kan. 266 

Wilkinson,   Nathan,  Wheeling,  W.  Va 245 

Willey,  Waitman  T.,  Morgantown,  W.  Va.  ............  157 

,  Williams,  Edward  Lindsay,  Washington,  D.  C .  .  .398 

.Wilson,  Edward  S.,  Olney,  111 , .  .   57 

,  Withrow,  Thomas  F.,  Chicago,   111. : 56 

Witten,  Thomas  Adams,  Kansas  City,  Mo 402 

Y 
Yuletide,    1902 — Queref ,  v.  .418 


c 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


LI 


ID       fjfrft  4 

DE'C'l 


Form  L9-50m-9,'60(B3610s4)444 


Ill 


001  209  942    o 


! 


DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS   BOOK  CARD 


University  Research  Library 


8 

K 

K 

3 

* 

B 
* 
I 
I 
I 

I 

I 
' 


